Category: Mom

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It’s My Turn to be a Proud Mommy

Her comments are decadent…delicious sweetness in a paper wrapper.
   
She infuses social media with her sweetness and infinite kindness.  
She describes her blog as, “… my comfortable place where I write about my true loves: My husband, my Twin sons, Writing Fiction, Shoes and Cupcakes. When you add celebrating other proud mommies, bringing a voice to infertility and battling fibromyalgia while enjoying too much television, shopping, books and traveling you have a comfy space where I’m always happy to invite friends in to visit.” 
Today I am taking a road trip to go hang out at Kir’s Corner.  I am sharing my Proud Mommy Moment.  So come on over and road trip with me.  It’s always more fun when you are there too. Maybe she’ll let us borrow some of her shoes and there are certainly going to be cupcakes! 




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The Freaking Truth

It is dark.  Deep breathing from the king sized bed and the end of one of his favorite crime drama movies shouting from the TV tell me it is very late.  The glow of the TV dances as its reflects off the surface of my smart phone. Where do I begin?  All I can do is stand there.  Stand there in the middle of the room…in the dark… by myself.  My hand drops to my side. The slow lose of normal breathing is partnered with a rapid heart beat.  My breathing gets faster.  Slowly it starts to feel as if I am blow up a balloon that do not exist.
Report due Tuesday. Still need to finish typing it.
Don’t forget to make sure the check is in Olivia’s back pack.
Report due Thursday too. Another two hours of work.
Don’t forget to make sure everyone is there.
Don’t forget to call Olivia’s teacher to touch base.
Post due Wednesday.
What was I thinking.
Don’t forget to make sure everything is in place for Tuesday’s lesson.
Don’t forget to tell hubby about window guy.
Post due Wednesday.
Try to watch a movie on night this week with husband.
Tomorrow is bath night for the girls.
Have to remember so make lunches for them on Turesday night.
Post due Wednesday…Post due Wednesday…Post due Wednesday…
My breathing is no longer my own as my heart beat thumps even faster in my chest.
My thoughts begin to loop.
When will I have time to do it all?  I can make a list. I’ll write it all down. If I can see the due dates maybe I’ll feel better.  I can write the report on Monday night.  Maybe if I work through lunch all week I’ll stay caught up.  I could trade post dates with someone.  How many nights could I stay up late and still be able to get through the week? How am I going to do it all?  I can’t do it all?  I won’t be able to do it all?  There is no way.  Who can do this?
Everything starts to pile on me.  Its weight continues to take the air from my breath. The thought of each unchecked item starts to surround me. What will I do?
STOOOOOPPPPPPPPP!
Wait just a second… Wait! When is my post due?
Oh it’s not for two weeks!
It certainly does not happen often, but it has been lately.  The cool, calm, positive, I can handle just about anything… has been freaking out!  In my world I am surrounded by strong, amazing women who navigate motherhood without breaking a sweat and work a forty hour week somewhere in between.  We all think that everyone is so good at it.  Everyone has it all together.  Well we do not and I am pretty certain none of us do at one point or another.  Sometimes we freak out because most of the time we are all just barely keeping it together.

Take time to talk to your girls friends.  Check in with them.  Talk about your days and share your lives.  You’ll be surprised at how hard it is for all of us.  None of us are alone!

                                                                                  
I am writing, posting and linking up to share my voice.
I am doing my part to carry the weight of confidence, empowerment and sharing the mission of empower, inspire and remind women, parents and children that the time has come to celebrate themselves…ourselves… myself!
This Just.Be.Enough Post was inspired by
This weeks theme: The Truth*
It’s your turn now…
 *Next Weeks Theme: 
“Something I do not regret…“
 (Remember you can also write on a topic of your choice.)
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I Relaxed!! No I Relaxed!!… It’s All in the Perspective

The garage door motor grinds as it opens.  The clock tells me it is my husband coming home from work.  Sitting at the kitchen table clicking away on the keyboard of my lap top I briefly consider that I probably should get off my a** and start dinner.  It is after all a swimming lesson night and that means less time to make dinner and eat it.  The girls are sprawled out on the couch, arms dangling off the side, eyes glazed over, still in their PJs.  The door opens and my husband’s “ I’m so happy to be home and see all my girls, I’ve missed you face” turns to a scowl of anger.

I had done NOTHING ALL DAY!!!!  WE had done NOTHING ALL DAY!

Sunday afternoon we arrived home from a weekend of camping.  It was Francine and Olivia’s first camping experience.  My dad was so happy and so excited to introduce another generation of our family to camping and to Point Beach State Park (our most favorite camping place… lost of family history. More to come on that later).  The girls had a wonderful weekend full of new experiences, adventure and unplugged family time.  It was wonderful.  I WAS EXHAUSTED… drag me to the door, take me out of the oven, sucked the life out of me… DONE!
The hubs had not gone camping with us.  It just isn’t his thing (although we are working on him).  While I am sooo happy that the girls had a fantastic time, I did not get a break.  Being four and five years old they still are not completely independent.  Camping with them (though my fantastic, fabulous, kiss your feet sister and her hubs were with us and helped a lot) means: we go to the bathroom together, we shower together, we slept on the same blow up matress together, we sat by the fire together, we read together (they can’t just sit around the fire and read… they can’t read), we played board games together.  It was 24/7 me and Francine and Olivia!

I WAS EXHAUSTED!!!

My husband was furious.  Furious that nothing was put away from our trip.  Furious that the kitchen he had cleaned while we were gone was messy again.  Furious that dinner was not made.  Furious that I had done NOTHING!!!  In between the whirl wind of trying to get my a** in gear, trying to make dinner before swimming (did not happen… another thing for him to be furious about) and getting girls ready for swimming I tried to defend myself and explain that I just needed a day to do nothing.  I’M EXHAUSTED.
“You had the entire weekend to yourself.”, I said.
Daggers came shooting from his eyes.
“I don’t consider a whole weekend by myself fun!”
“Sh*t I would.  I would pay for that”, I think.
“Are you mad because we just got back from a vacation and I did nothing today?” I say to him.
Walking up the stairs he turns, looks at me and gives me the smile, head nod, shoulder shrug that means, “ Well yeah!”
While he thought I was on vacation, spending time with family, sitting around the camp fire and doing hardly anything, relaxing … I thought he was sitting at home doing nothing, spending time alone in a quiet house, doing, eating, watching whatever he wanted, relaxing all by himself.

Perspective is such an interesting thing.

                                                                                             
“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” 
                                                                                John Lubbock
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Not My Mother’s Daughter

The warm water washed over me and as usual I began to think of all the things I needed to do.  I also started to think of all the things I wanted to do.  It was Saturday and I was told to take more time to myself.  Thoughts of my family began to drift into my head.  My own family.  How lucky I am.  My sisters, my dad and my mom.  My mom….

For eight years my memories of her have brought me sadness, anger and even embarrassment.  She had left this world losing her battle with depression.  The years leading up to her death were more then challenging, exhausting and something daughters should never have to do.  Up until last year if someone said, “Oh you remind me of your mom!” or “That reminds me so much of your mother!!”  I found myself overwhelmed with anger and embarrassment.  

“I was not like her!”, I would exclaim to myself.

Eight years later  it is just a typical Saturday morning. I am so happy with my life, happy with myself and so happy with the mother, wife, friend and women I have become.  I am strong and independent.  I love my job.  I get to go to work everyday and do what I have always wanted to do.  My daughters are polite, articulate, creative and love life.  My house is a lived in clean.  The laundry is done, but not folded.  The floor is scattered with toys and the markers and art work on the kitchen table always have to be cleaned up before dinner.  

I am not like my mother.

Yet,  still I find myself taken by the love and longing for my mother.  I am finally able to get past the wall of anger.  I love my mother.  I miss my mother.  I have always loved my mother.  I hate the illness she had, I hate what it did to her.  I hate what it made me have to do.  

I’m not like my mother.

Today I find myself suddenly in a much different place.  A place where I look back on the memories of my mom and they are fond and loving.   She was the most wonderful mother.  She was loving, gentle, selfless, she loved life and was passionate about being a mother.  Her greatest goal in life was to raise us to be well rounded, happy, successful women.  So today I find myself overwhelmingly happy to be compared to my mom.  Happy to be lucky enough to have many of my moms features.   Blessed to be able to share with my daughters traditions my mother gave me. Smiling that my daughter loves to have her back rubbed the same way my mom rubbed mine.   Lovingly, sharing fantastic stories and memories of my mother with my daughters… and with tears in my eyes and reflecting smile I find myself thinking:  I’m not my mother, but I will always be my mothers daughter.







Post inspired by writing prompt from Mama Kat’s 
Not your mother’s daughter…how do you parent differently than your mother did? 
Is it a good thing or a bad thing?


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