In the Moment

Ah, the holiday season!  Concerts, programs, parties, pageants.   This season is so busy for us parents.  I feel like we just run from one performance to the next, and my girls aren't in a lot of activities!  One thing I have noticed lately, in all my audience time, is how much we photograph and videotape every single minute of stage time.  Okay, okay, I know that a lot of moms aren't like me and make sure their battery in their camera is charged before leaving the house (ahem) or that they packed their fancy photo taking phone in their purse (mine is worthless as a camera).  But as I watch so many of these parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles document their small, loved ones, I wonder:  how many of those hours of videotape will actually be watched?  How many photos will actually make it to the printer?  

I am a sentimental type, don't get me wrong, but I wonder:  did the adult really even see the full performance on the screen of their camera or cell phone?  When did we get so obsessed in "capturing the moment" that we missed the moment all together?  

Well, since I can't take pictures on my camera with a dead battery or on my horrible cell phone (which I would have to pry from my toddler who is watching a dancing blob of toothpaste), I have learned to just enjoy the moment.  To actually watch all the children performing, instead of being so zoomed in on my child that I miss the little boy picking his nose, the way the children light up when interacting with the teacher who prepared the performance, or the shy girl who finally started doing the motions with the rest of the group.  These are the moments we are truly missing.  This is why we come to these events and spend countless hours doing hair, finding dresses and practicing lines and songs.  These are the memories that our children will have while reminiscing about their elementary concert or Christmas program, not the hour long performance seen on video playback.

As we go into the final days of Christmas, I realize that I want to enjoy the full picture of what's happening in front of me.  I don't want to see the day through a viewfinder, but rather, snap a few pictures of the highlights to tuck away, and then enjoy the big picture.  

The Best of Me

A few weeks ago, I wrote an apology letter to my third.  But, in a way, my third baby has had the best version of me of all my girls.  When my first was little, I was so concerned with making sure I kept up with the housework, dishes, cooking and making sure my life didn't change from before babies.  With my second, I felt like I was completely drowning in things to do.  Here I had two small children to feed, bathe, nourish, and worry about.  But, with #3, something has changed.  I have thrown out all of my parenting books and just basically taken it one day at a time with her.  I don't sweat the small stuff anymore because I know that every phase will pass (and, hopefully, she will someday sleep through the night in her own bed).  I am a more confident mom with her.  While I don't always love the way I look, I have let go enough to go out and do anything I want and not worry about what others are saying about me.  E has gotten to experience so many more things because mommy isn't concerned with how I look in jeans and if I have make up on.  I don't read through cookbooks trying to make sure that every meal is well rounded with fruit, veggies, protein and carbs.  Because, guess what--it all rounds out in the end.  Sometimes with E, right in the middle of my daily chores, I stop washing the dishes and just take a moment to sing and dance with her and enjoy the moment.  I sit in the chair and cuddle and read to her as many books as she will bring, because I know that will only be little for awhile.  It has taken me 2 babies to realize how fast the time truly goes.  I don't freak out about the temper tantrum that she throws, because I remember that the other two did the same and eventually just grew out of it.  E has learned how to be a lot more patient and forgiving of her mother than the other 2.  She learned early that a lot of the time she had to wait for whatever she wanted, and that her mom makes mistakes--A LOT!  I was so ready to get to the next stage with L (#1) that I realize now how much I missed of the stage she was in.  With N (#2), I had a huge life change to go along with her birth (an out of state move with new jobs for my husband and I), so I feel like a lot of my overwhelmed feeling was just an adjustment phase.  With E (#3), I have learned to do a thousand things one handed while holding onto a baby in the other.  Because, some day I will put her down and she won't want me to pick her up again.  I have grown in so many ways as a mother since my first was born.  While I may not have time to keep up with E's baby book or to take a million pictures or video tape every milestone she makes, I have learned to just stop and enjoy the moment, because she is only small once.  Thank goodness I have changed!

Christmas overindulgence

Well, here it is, December.  I love Christmas lights, Christmas music, Christmas food, pretty much everything Christmas...except one thing:  Christmas presents.  WHAT?  Yep, you heard me, Christmas presents.  It's so overwhelming to me that everyday I pick up toys that were barely played with, just to be thrown about, scattered around the bedrooms, living room and hallway.  And yet, with December 25th looming, I know that my 3 kids are about ready to get another big delivery of toys.  My house is so full of toys: my basement is full of toys, my kids bedrooms are full of toys, I even have toys in the bathroom!!!  However, I find myself searching through the internet just to find more toys, so that I have something to give them on Christmas day.  Does anybody else feel this way?  I feel like I need to get rid of most of their toys just to make room for new toys.  
This year I want to to scream from the rooftop, "Nobody should be buying my kids anything this Christmas!!!!"  Goodness, they can't even keep the toys from the past 6 years Christmases cleaned up!  Yet, if I take Christmas presents away from them, are they going to feel shorted? Just because overindulgence has become the norm?  How sad is it that this is a question that I even have to ask? 
I completely get the foundation of Christmas: God sent his son, Jesus, as a gift to the people.  The wise men gave gifts of offering for the newborn king.   So, I definitely see where gift giving originated.  What we have gotten away from is that gift giving is about showing our love to another person.  Instead, we continue to buy worthless junk for each other just so that we can "give" something.  
I would love to show my children the reality:  some people don't have ONE present at Christmas, some people don't have enough food at Christmas, some people are cold on Christmas, some people don't have clean water on Christmas, and some people live in fear on Christmas and everyday of the year. 
I would love to skip Christmas and just have another Thanksgiving.  I love being together and eating!  I hate the consumerism of Christmas.  While I don't think that skipping Christmas is ever possible, I am searching for ways to slim down and show my children what Christmas really means.  It's not about presents under the tree, a man in a red suit, snowmen and reindeer.  I want them to know that Christmas is giving of your time, your energy, your attention, your love.  
So, while I, and many of you, countdown to Christmas, I hope that we are showing our kids what Christmas is really about.

Drowning

Ugh...I'm drowning.  Tonight, I sat down to make myself a to-do list for my day off tomorrow.  It started as any other list, "laundry, dishes, vacuum, wipe down bathrooms, etc."  Then, I had this overwhelming feeling like it may be faster and easier to just write down the things I don't need to do tomorrow.  Holy cow!  My living room is a disaster, my kitchen is a disaster, my kids have a path to their beds, I need to do mountains of laundry, the girls have single handedly destroyed their bathroom, the Christmas tree needs to be put up, the fall decorations need to be taken down, on and on and on.  So far the only thing I don't have to do tomorrow is unpack from our trip.  How did I get so far behind?  And why do I always feel like this?

Is it completely normal to feel like you are drowning in house work?  I can't remember the last time I mopped my floor, vacuumed, or dusted.  I'm afraid that my dust bunnies are planning an attack any moment.  I have a few things I always try to keep up on: dishes and cleaning up the living room floor.  Because, let's face it, getting up to make breakfast and finding a huge mess totally ruins the day, and who wants to trip on something in the middle of the night when on their way to rock the baby back to sleep in the living room?  

Is this the way motherhood is going to be until they graduate?  Why do I see all these other homes on Facebook and pinterest and everything appears to be picked up and clean?  How do those moms do it?  When, between cooking dinner, doing homework, rocking babies, working out, and running kids everywhere to they find the time to keep their head above water on housework?  

Here reads my future obituary:

She was chased by dust bunnies, tried to run away, slipped on a toy, fell on the dirty floor, then drowned by her to-do list.  Ugh!  

Lost

Does any other mom (or any 30+ woman) for that matter, feel completely lost these days?  I'm not sure what happened to me?  One day I was a a young, fashionable woman who could shop anywhere and now I'm not even sure what section of the store I should be in?  Juniors...no.  Women's...no.  Where is the mid life area of the friggin store?  I am not 19 anymore and I don't want to look like it, but I don't want to wear something that my mom may be wearing, too.  (Sorry Mom!)  And when the heck are low rise jeans going to die already?  Oh my goodness!!!  Have we not seen enough crack lately to just end it?
And what radio station am I supposed to listen to?  I tried listening to top 40 the other day. It was great, I was singing along, until I realized my preschooler was also singing along.  Believe me, the lyrics are so much more disgusting coming from a 4 year old's mouth than from those singers.  I tried listening to country, but I either hear my parents country that I remember from the backseat when I was growing up, or some kind of country/rap that is worse than fingernails on chalkboard.
So, I guess, where do I fit in?  I have lost myself.  And I'm not sure where to look?  Where do you get clothes that don't cling to your fat rolls, or pants that don't show your moon to everyone?  But, I don't want "Mom" jeans where my butt looks completely flat, either. What radio station do I listen to?
Even more infuriating is the fact that my husband seems to be completely unscathed from aging (and parenting, for that matter).  Sure, he's got a little big bigger belly and a few more gray hairs, but he doesn't walk around in low rise jeans, hiking them up right before sitting/kneeling/leaning over/etc.  He can still listen to the same music he enjoyed in high school and college (although it sounds like my ear drums may be crying listening to it).  His clothes are the same, yes, a bit bigger than the day we married, but a T-shirt, jeans/shorts and tennis shoes are completely acceptable in 95% of his daily dealings.  He doesn't stand in the middle of the men's section wondering which subsection of clothes to try on from.  He just picks his clothes out, rarely tries them on (Why are they all sized the same and I have to try on 4 different sizes per brand to find my perfect fit?) and goes home, probably to drink a beer.  He doesn't question the larger part of his life in the buying of his clothes like I do.
Maybe we are part of the lost generation.  We are the forgotten women who are too old for Forever 21, but too young for the women's section.  Too old to be young, but too young to be old.  I wonder if all 30 something women feel as lost as I do in this world.  Where do we fit in?

Scared

I'm writing from my heart and from probably a lot of parents' hearts.  I'm scared.  I am worried about the world my children will be adults in.  You know what I'm talking about:  these last few days with the terrorist attacks in Paris and countless other problems throughout the world.   Did I set them up for a life of scary situations?  Will they see the collapse of humanity?  Was I selfish just wanting children because it was the thing to do, not even thinking about how the world would be when they were growing up in it?
I worry about this every time something terrible happens in the world.  I feel so bad for the families of the affected and wonder if they pondered these ideas late at night as well. I wonder if all mothers throughout all of time have had this same worry?  Have they worried when Pearl Harbor was bombed that their children's future wasn't going to be growing up in a free nation?  Were the mothers who bear children in the Black Plague worried that their children were going to be the end of all generations?  Or the moms who lost children in a tsunami but then had more children, worried that their new children may come to an untimely death as well?  Maybe this is part of mother hood?  We worry about our children day in and day out.  We worry about their future, that we are doing a good enough job and they will be a good person, that the world will be nice to them, that the world may someday be a better place that the one we are living in.
I try to live in a bubble of motherhood right now.  Because, let's face it, as a mom I have a million things to worry about without the paranoia of the news channel.  I worry that my daughter is doing well enough in math and that my preschooler is nice to her friends without being a "mean girl."  I worry that my youngest is gaining weight fast enough, that I paid the electric bill on time, that the milk is on sale this week and if I can get there before it goes off sale (hey, $1 saved is $1).  But, I can't live in the bubble forever:  I see the bad things when I am on social media, on the radio in the car on the way to the school, or flashing across my phone when I'm getting ready to make a phone call.
Then I realize that if I wouldn't have risked having children in these sometimes grim times, I would have missed out on the possibility that one of them may change the world for the better. That one of them will come up with a vaccine to cure cancer or that they may see the world at complete peace someday.  I would also be denying them the chance to see the good in the world.  The chance to see the best of humanity, the thousands of good things that happen day in and day out that the news doesn't report on.  And I would have missed the chance to see the light that they bring into my world everyday.
Friends, this is a scary time.  But, as we look throughout history, they are all scary times.  And yet, good reigns.  We will point out the good to our children so they will see it everyday.  We will give our children hope.

Apology Letter

Dear #3,
I'm writing you this letter today, just to simply say that I'm so very sorry.  I'm sorry that I was too busy playing peek a boo with you to stop and grab my camera and take a picture.  I'm sorry that I was cooking and holding you on my hip instead of writing down every milestone in your baby book.  I'm sorry that a lot of times I had to walk by you instead of stopping to cuddle with you because I was running behind to go pick up one of your sisters.  I'm sorry that I didn't read you the 3 stories at night that I read to #1 as a baby everynight, but I did sit by your crib at night when you were too scared to stay in your room alone until you fell asleep.  I keep thinking that there is no way I will forget the way that you smile your cheesy smile or all your adorable words, but let's be honest here, I will.  I will forget a lot of these moments of you being little.  Because they will be lost in a million memories of you growing up:  going to kindergarten, learning to read, learning multiplication, getting your feelings hurt, playing your first sport, going to high school, learning to drive, going to prom and graduating high school.  I will forget how excited you get to grab your jacket to go get "Ya-Ya and No-wa" from school.  I will forget your cute little way of saying "dank you," for everything.  I will probably forget how your little face lights up when you hear your "Da-da" coming home from work.
And while I spent countless hours reading books to #1, and singing to #2 in the bathtub, I hurry through bath time and bedtime with you, because I have a million other things to do.  While I would love to sit in the recliner and cuddle with you all day, I need to clean your clothes, wash the dishes, clean the floors, and make dinner for you and your sisters.  I hope you forgive me for being too busy living in the moment to stop and take pictures and video.  I hope you forgive me for taking care of the little essentials that make your world go around instead of making some hand print craft off of Pinterest.  I hope that you forgive me that I never put one printed out picture in your baby book, but did let you sit in your highchair and color with your big sisters so you felt like one of them.
There are a few things that I will always remember, #3:  I will always remember the bear hugs that you give my leg when I first get home, even if its from the grocery store.  I will remember how all my fears of not being able to love another child as much as I loved #1 and #2 when finding out I was pregnant with you, all faded away when I first held you.  And I will remember how much my heart swells when I see all my girls together, and my life complete because of all of you.  

--Mommy

Just enough!

We all feel the pressure.  Our world is built around social media these days and every mom feels the pressure to be more.  In better shape, wearing better clothes, doing better birthday parties, having a cleaner house, making healthier meals...  

But maybe, just maybe, we are enough.  Maybe we need to love ourselves just the way we are.  Its okay that we are in yoga pants and snot-crusted tees, because we spent the day cuddling our teething toddler.  Its okay that we didn't make a meal that fits in the food pyramid, because we were busy helping our first grader do her homework.  Its okay that we don't have perfect bodies because we have children that love us just because we are mom.  Its okay that our kids birthday party is just a thrown together birthday cake at the park because we got to spend time with our friends and the kids had a blast.  Its okay that we didn't cut out shapes from the cheese in our first grader's lunch because we threw in a note telling her we love her.  

There are a million times a day that I feel like I am not enough.  I'm not doing enough for my kids, for myself, for the house, for my husband.  But then I try to remember that my children go to bed every night with full bellies, clean sheets and love in their heart.  They won't remember that I didn't clean up the kitchen every night or that they had peanut butter and honey for the 5th time in a week.  They will remember that I sat and read them a book while they played with my messy hair, chatted with them about their day, finished their homework, and made sure their preschool shirt was clean when they needed to wear it.  Because I am enough.  

Maybe

'Maybe I wasn't cut out for this.'  And there it is, the little voice of self doubt that visits often.  'You yell too much...the kids ate chicken nuggets for the 3rd lunch in a row...do you even remember when you mopped the floor last?...where is your toddler? why is she so quiet?...you need to eat healthier, lose weight, workout more, teach your kids about the greater good, etc. etc, etc.'
I'm there today.  I've yelled more times than I can count, tripped over the same pair of shoes more times than I can count, swept the floor a hundred times.  I'm burnt out.  I'M DONE!  Then, there it is, "MOMMA!"  What could they possibly want now?  Then the quiet response: "I love you!"
And I realize, maybe I'm not doing everything right, but I'm the best mom they have ever had.  Who?  ME? 'Yes you! You are the only mom that stops everything she is doing to put American girl knock-off clothes on for the hundredth time, the one that explains why the guy in the VA commercial has a prosthetic leg and what freedom truly means, only to know that its way over their heads.  The one woman in the world that they can sit and watch do her makeup everyday and when you are wearing your worst clothes, they tell you that you are beautiful.'  
You are their idol.  So there self-doubt!  Take that.  You stole most of my day away worrying that I am ruining my children forever or that they may catch some foreign disease from eating the food that fell on the floor. But tomorrow, you will sit quietly in the corner and watch as I conquer this mom thing.  Some days are great, and some days aren't.  Okay, some days really SUCK and make me wonder what happened to that twenty something girl that hangs in the wedding portrait on my wall.  What was she thinking?  Why would she forego all of her life goals to be a mom? 
Then I quietly sneak into their bedrooms at night and almost cry because there are three beautiful faces, perfect in every way.  They think I am the best and tomorrow I will try again to be my best.

That day...

I still remember finding out my life would completely change.  I had a gut feeling, but every pregnancy test said I was imagining it.  Then 3 days later, the test finally caught up with what my body already knew, I would be a mother.  Now, 6 years later, I have already forgotten what I was before a mom.  I have highlights of things I miss, but I have forgotten most.  I now have 3 babies (face it, they will always be my babies--even though they will argue differently).  Everyday I am still working on getting my body back, I drive a minivan, and have given up on cute little purses (seriously, who can get all their crap in there, plus a diaper or snacks).  And yet, I can't imagine my life without any of you.  You are the reason I get up in the morning--no literally, you are right there waking me up every morning!  And the reason I go to sleep at night and for everything in between.   While it has changed every facet of my life, I love most moments of it.  It is such a great adventure to relearn everything through a child's eyes.  Everyday, I get to help my girls discover something new.  I get to join in their accomplishments, heartaches, laughter, tears, and sometimes unending whining.  I can't imagine my life any other way.