Oh My Gluestick

I’ve done what I promised to do in March.  I ignored my blog so I could live in the moment with my kids.  I’ve enjoyed every glorious, enlightening, exquisite, heartbreaking, and frustrating moment we’ve encountered.  There have been topics I’ve wanted to discuss and times where I thought I’d sit down to write but opted to craft, read, or play with my children instead and felt ok about that.  And as I sit here and type up my thoughts that don’t really amount to much I hear the sweet sound of my 5-year-old’s voice calling, “Mommy come here!”.  Who couldn’t resist that?  Especially when finding this once I entered the room:

I became a stay-at-home mommy because I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else getting to witness all of the special moments that I would miss while I sat in an office somewhere.  I still have a hard time with my oldest in school.  While it’s the best choice for our family (and her decision) right now for her to be in public school, I miss her incredibly and feel tinges of pain when I know I’m missing exciting stuff that’s going on in her day.  I am as giddy as she is about summer vacation and am counting down the days.  We are preparing our summer list of adventures we want to have and special things we want to do together as a family.  It’s my favorite list we make, because it’s all super fun stuff and our whole family participates.

While all these momentous and exciting things are happening in our lives, I can’t help but focus part of my attention to those who were robbed of these moments.  People who should be planning end of the school year parties with their friends and summer vacations with their families.  All over the world, devastation is hitting close to home.  It’s unbearable imagining suffering parents missing their babies that are so close in age to my own.  My heart breaks for them knowing that with every conscience effort I make with my children, these poor parents don’t get that luxury anymore.  I think about them while I wrap my children in a blanket of love and hold them extra close.  I pray for them to have peace and comfort.  I cry and ache for and with complete strangers who don’t even know that I exist, because their suffering is not something I can not ignore.  It’s too personal even if we’ve never met.

This past December, I took the shooting in Sandy Hook especially hard.  Images of the terror  in those innocent babies’ eyes is not something I could shake.  Thinking about my own first grader having to experience something so horrific shook me to my very core and left me a sobbing mess for days.  I couldn’t even bring myself to tell her what had happened and kept her home from school until after the winter break.  Maybe to some that was a bit extreme, but at such a young age I wanted her to hold on to her innocence without having to fear going to a place that is supposed to feel safe and secure.  I did what I felt was best and she still to this day doesn’t have a clue about that terrible day.

I easily get caught up in tragedies.  It’s our human nature to identify and empathize with others.  I think it’s important to stay briefed on what’s going on in the world, especially when there are charities and causes we  as a family can help with.  However, to keep my own sanity and continue to stay as in the moment as I possibly can, I have to find a balance and know when to turn it off.  I don’t watch the evening news religiously because it often moves to the point of exploitation other than being informative or leaves me handicapped with fear to leave my own home.  I’m not turning my back on those who are suffering, I’m trying to stay positive for my own family by not dwelling in a downward spiral of shame that I could have somehow prevented something out of my reach or feeling guilty for not having been a victim myself.  These are crazy thoughts, but I know I’m not alone.  I find this especially true for moms with young children.  Good mamas don’t just want to do what’s best for their children, they want to save and cure the world for them so that they grow and thrive in harmony without worry.  God knows I don’t want my children to have to worry about half as much as I have had to, so if I shelter them a little too much while they’re young it’s with the best of intentions.

There will always be situations that I can’t shelter my kids from no matter how much I want to and things that happen in the world so fast that there is little time to prepare.  For those who lost their babies in Oklahoma earlier this week, my heart aches for you.  Your families are in our thoughts and prayers.  For all the victims and survivors, we pray for peace and comfort while you rebuild your homes and your lives.  May the babies who endured the frightening storm in those schools find solace in friends, families, neighbors, and complete strangers who are tirelessly donating their time and energy to help rebuild the community.  Though there is no limit to hugs and love in this house, I will give my babies extra this week knowing there are those who can’t do the same for theirs.

I’ve been up since 4:00 a.m. this morning.  This wasn’t by choice.  I like to sleep, so I would never willingly wake up before 7:00 a.m. {ok 9:00, but this is the real world} unless I absolutely have to.  I felt my middle love crawl into bed on my side and suddenly felt crowded.  Baby was already in bed with us {and has been since November after he got a series of horrible double ear infections and had a hard time getting comfortable}.  I reached over to feel him and his legs were cold with goose bumps.  Dear Lord!  Didn’t I put this child in jammie bottoms last night?  Yes I did because he fought me on them.  He fights over everything he wears these days unless it’s Elmo, dinosaurs, or monsters.  What can I say, the kid knows what he wants!?  After drawing him into me so I could lavish my warmth on him, I felt the towel.  Oh no.  He peed.  He peed and Hubby dealt with it.  Thank God and thank you Hubby!  How did I not wake up for this?  When did this even happen?  I left Hubby on the couch at 10:30 last night.  He was too difficult to wake up and get him to move to the bed so I enjoyed it alone in bliss until the realization of pee, back pain from middle child laying {almost} on top of me, and feeling crowded set in.  I sent Middle back to his bed and there I was.  Awake.  Wide awake without any inkling of falling back to sleep.  Then, one by one the damn cats asked to be let out.  Why can’t they ever just all go out at once!?  Why the shrieking sound of their meows to alert us to let them out?  Hubby likes to keep them out all night, but I take pity on them.  I love them and want them to be safe and warm and feel sorry for them.  Plus, it’s usually his poor soul that ends up waking up for them and I only hear about it the next morning.  Not this morning.  It was all my privilege to stumble out of bed, focus my dried up contacts that I shamelessly slept in for the 5th straight night, and try not to trip over the cars Baby left out last night that I was too tired to pick up.

Between the up and down, I grabbed my phone and like a little kid made a tent under the covers to hide the light.  I checked my email and Facebook.  No one is up at this hour.  I checked on Twitter and tweeted.  This is not my forte.  I am Twitter challenged.  Not in the design itself, but the logistics.  I just can’t get on board with it.  I know it’s a great social media site and has been very successful for some, but I feel completely out of my element.  I then turned to the internet once my fingers and toes start to go numb.  This has been happening quite a bit lately and I’m 90% sure it’s an iron deficiency.  I have all the signs with brittle finger nails, easy bruising, numbing of extremities, and a constant need to jack the heater up to 80, so I do some research on anemia and decide to start taking my iron supplements again.  It’s only 5:30 at this point and I need to be up in an hour and clearly my brain is not going to let me enjoy more sleep.  I give it up and decide to greet the day.

Tonight will probably be an early one unless I plan on propping my eyes open later with toothpicks, but one thing’s for sure.  I will have visitors in my bed.  As uncomfortable as it sometimes is, it’s also bliss.  These tiny humans won’t always want the comfort of Mommy and Daddy in bed and the thought makes me so sad.  I know one day soon, I’ll look back and miss the back pain, the radiating heat, the Baby not letting me cover my shoulders {come on!}, and the pee.  Ok, so maybe I won’t miss the pee as much as the cuddles, sweet baby breath, giggles in their sleep, and protests of “No!” while being hit repeatedly in the boob and face while Baby battles some crazy dream where he is more than likely fighting with Middle.  I’ll even miss it when he puts his foot in my back while pushing me to the very edge of the bed with my face half on the night stand.  They are my world.  It gets messy, crazy, uncomfortable, and exhausting but it is fun, sweet, loving and amazing.  Wouldn’t trade it for anything.  I would however, trade my mattress.

My goal was to post at least once a week on the new site.  When I can find the time to squeeze out uninterrupted thoughts I will, but right now my kids are little and I am busy trying not to disappoint them.  They are where my heart is.  They come first before the business, my outlet or anything personal.  Don’t get me wrong, I find ways to unwind and regroup.  I get my little breaks here and there, but that’s not what’s really important to me.  What is are the firsts, the triumphs, the special and the ordinarily extraordinary.  They are only little once and it goes extremely, head-spinninly, way too fast.  My baby is a Mommy’s boy through and through as is my middle child, my sweet loving son who still wants to cuddle Mommy.  My daughter is a tiny little woman already and she’s only in first grade.  She used to want to cuddle, but now she wants me in other ways.  She’s interested in decorating, crafting, painting nails, girlie things that I revel in, but I miss the baby girl who didn’t want to leave my side and who cried at the gym when I tried to get a work out in but failed miserably because the thought of her being upset killed me when it was for my own personal gain.  Some can balance it all and do it seamlessly.  For those who can, I am in awe because when push comes to shove I am total mush when it comes to my kids.

I will do what benefits us all without rocking the boat too much.  I can work out when they are asleep.  I can fill orders after bedtime.  I can dream up new designs and get to them eventually.  I can be the mommy I want to be and the one they deserve.  That, I am totally capable of.  I do it well despite my daughter’s outburst at lunch last weekend that I “never do anything with or for” them.  Um, that was a direct shot to my heart.  As much as I wanted to childishly list out all the things I do daily and show her photos documenting my winnable case, I choked up and it really hurt.  Since I became a mother, I carry around a lifetime of guilt and it would consume me if I didn’t know better.  My mother was not a good mother.  She was a bad example of unconditional love, being selfless, and doing what is best for her children.  She was callous, childish, mean, hateful, and abusive.  For her mistakes, I carry guilt and make every effort to be the mother I deserved and the mother my kids can be proud of.  Letting history repeat itself is not an option.  Despite the DNA she passed on to me, I will never be her.  I can’t and I won’t.

Last night I read this article, “Dear Mom on the iPhone”.  The guilt I carry swelled up and lumped in my throat.  Damn.  I do use my phone a little more than I should.  I strive to be in the moment, every single one but miss sometimes.  I do get a little distracted with emails from time to time and am very dependent on this square device that I keep on me at all times, unless I lose it in the couch, bed, or put it in a safe place and forget where.  It’s my life line to the outside world.  I use it for emails, to chat with my husband on his break, to video and photograph my children in those precious moments when my Nikon just won’t do.  I can keep it in my back pocket and have the world at my fingertips with the swiftness of drawing a pistol and the discreetness of a carrying tampon.  Its invention is genius, but there is the opportunity to over-do-it which I think everyone at some point is probably guilty of including the mom who wrote the article.  It makes me wonder if she is carrying guilt of her own.  Does she have skeletons that causes her to carry more guilt than she should humanly have to?  Is this why she judges because she has trouble self reflecting her own issues?  Look, I have been the mom enjoying the silence and sunshine on the park bench and relished in the few moments to myself while the kids where busy playing and have taken advantage reaching for the phone.  I enjoy updating my husband on our day and giving him the insight to where we are for safety reasons.  I like being able to quickly respond to clients instead of making them wait until the evening, giving them the impression that I wouldn’t respond and moving on to the next designer.  I don’t make a habit of being long and certainly don’t intend to miss any moments of those precious children clinging to the monkey bars and sliding down slides.  They are my life, the air I breathe, and the reason God put me on this Earth.  And I enjoy them.  God, do I enjoy the amazing little people they are.  So lady, give me a break.  Give us all a break.  Don’t we all deserve one?  Everyone has to find their own balance.  It’s not up to you to judge or point fingers.  It’s not your responsibility to parent the rest of us.  Surely, you have your own moments and perhaps your priorities are significantly different from mine.  So be it, but I am me, faults and all.  I embrace those faults and admit when I’m wrong.  The tiny moments I steal to check an email do not make me a bad mother.  I wouldn’t have taken my kids to the park if I was one.