kids

What About Me?

/ Cassie / 1 Comment

“Be miserable.  Or motivate yourself.  Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” ~Wayne Dyer

I started this summer as I start every summer…with great plans.  I was going to accomplish so much.  The house was going to be cleaned and organized. I was going to go to the gym every day.  I was going to work with Max on his writing and Ollie on his…demoness stubborn personality.  I was going to read great books and write great things.  I was going to plan for the next school year.  All my centers would be made in advance.

I was going to do great things this summer.

Here’s what I have actually accomplished: I read two books, organized the toys in Max’s closet, and gone to the gym a smattering of times.

All I can really say is “what the hell happened?!?!?!?!?”

I have been extremely lazy, and probably downright selfish, this summer and I really don’t like it.  I was supposed to make positive contributions to myself and my family and I have done nothing.

Fortunately, the best advice anyone ever gave me was that every every day, every hour, every minute is new…a time in which you can be reborn.

So tonight I signed up for the next Color Run in Baltimore (to be held in November).  And tomorrow I will make my way back to the gym.

And each day I will accomplish something else because I can.  I’m fortunate to know that I have the time to do this while others don’t.  I am one of the lucky ones.

It’s time to get back on track.  I can do this.

I have to do this.

And yet another way I suck as a mom

/ Cassie / 2 Comments

“Where would you be without friends? The people to pick you up when you need lifting? We come from homes far from perfect, so you end up almost like siblings to your friends – your chosen family. There’s nothing like a really loyal, dependable, good friend. Nothing.” ~Jennifer Aniston

There comes a time in every parent’s day where you have to admit to your “Yup, today I suck at _________________. ” Usually, for me, it’s that I don’t have enough patience or that I’m not spending enough quality time with the kids. Today, though, it’s different. Today’s it’s about something I feel like I have little control over.

Basically, I need more mommy friends. Somehow when you have children you suddenly have 100 friends…on Facebook and Twitter. People come out of the wood work to be your friend. People you may not have talked to since high school may now be commenting on or liking your status, simply because, now that you both have children, you have something in common, a bond that no one can break. You are both MOMS and that pretty much means you get all the stuff going on with each other without even having to talk or be “in real life” friends.

Parenting is like a club (or if we’re really being honest, like a cult) and you have to really be IN IT to be IN. It’s not something you can fake or buy your way into.

With all that being said I have a ton of mommy friends…on the Internet. In real life, not so much. Which never really bothered me until now. I don’t really see myself as a social person. I tend to not like many people and am very choosy about who I spend my time and energy on. Unfortunately, for me most of my company these days in in the form of the childless. Don’t get me wrong, on most days this is awesome and EXACTLY what I need. Time and space away from my family life and mommy life to just be non-mommy me.

Lately I have been wondering how this is affecting me kids. In the same way that I am not very social, they are very social and need more time to socialize with kids their own age (or at least close to it). I know they get to do it at school, but I’m talking about your average, garden variety play date. I feel bad that they don’t seem to have any friends outside of school. For me, this was the best part of browning up where I did and I don’t want them to miss out simply because I can’t seem to get my shit together.

For a while I thought maybe it’s because my kids are weird (no, really, they are) but now I realize it’s probably me. I have no idea how to put myself out there and make friends of the mom variety. I’m sure I’m constantly being judged in some way (yes, I let my kids pick their own clothes so they usually look like color blind homeless people, yes we tend to spend a lot of time outside so we are usually dirty, yes that IS a non-organic juice box my kid is drinking-points for 100% juice right?).

Am I being judged, or am I doing the judging? Maybe it’s just a little bit of both. Point is, I need to make some more mama friends quick before I simply begin accosting random people on the street and asking them to play. I have a feeling this will be frowned up and not win me any points (or play dates) in the mom community.

Why I (kinda) hate mother’s day

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“God could not be everywhere, and therefor he made mothers.” ~Rudyard Kipling

I feel like I should start this post with a disclaimer.  We celebrate mother’s day in my household.  I make my husband buy gifts for his mom and I make my kids buy gifts for their “grammy”.  While I don’t actually expect gifts, I do hope that everyone could just be a little nicer, quieter and cleaner just for this one day.  With that being said I am not a very big fan of this holiday, and I’m a mom.

Some might say the reason I don’t really get into mother’s day is that I must not have a very good relationship with my mother.  And that’s the truth, I don’t.  My mom always had other things to worry about, more pressing engagements to attend to, more important life moments to get involved in.  I’m pretty sure I was resented for being born and messing up the life she could have had.  I also wasn’t a very good child, or a very pretty child, or really that extraordinary in any way.  I tended to blend in and shy away from attention while my mom tried her best to shine.  My brothers, all of them, were always closer to her.  Maybe they understood her better than I could.  Maybe she understood them better than she could me.

This is not the part where you feel sorry for me.  Everything that happened to me growing up shaped who I am today.  Sometimes people have personality conflicts, and while we think there is always a bong between a mother and a child that no one can break, it’s not true.  I wasn’t abused, or neglected, or mistreated by my mother.  I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and someone always there to sign a permission slip when I needed.  We simply never found a way to connect and that’s ok.  We were so far opposite that we couldn’t even attract.  Quite honestly, though, all of this is besides the point.

Now, all these experiences with my mom have completely shaped the way I “mother” my two little ones.  I make sure I make them a priority while I still have a semblance of a life.  I try to get interested in the things they are (I can name every Transformer and Thomas character) and share my interests with them.  No matter if it’s been a bad day, good day, frustrating day, relaxing day, there is never a doubt that I love them and they love me.  Being a mother is the thing I am the most proud of and my most important job.  I work very hard to try and be the best mother I can be every day of my kid’s lives.  Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t, but I never stop putting forth the effort.

That brings me, in a very long winded way, to why I’m not a fan of Mother’s Day.  Plain and simple, we should not choose to focus on the work and dedication of mothers on one day during the year.  Mothers should be revered, loved, cherished every day.  Mother’s don’t get a day off, not from the worry, love, guilt, frustration, exhaustion, and stickiness that is parenting.  Not even on mother’s day.

I sometimes feel like giving mothers just a day (or dads just a day, or women and African Americans just a month) it gives us a reason to slack off the rest of the year.  Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t love the beaded necklace my 4 year old made me, or don’t kinda expect breakfast in bed tomorrow, but why only this day that these things happen?  Then again, I am a crazy mom.  I even bought my kids gifts for tomorrow because frankly, without them, I wouldn’t be celebrating this day at all.

I really do hope everyone who reads this enjoys their mothers day, whether they are a mother or not.  But remember to try, some random day in October, to call your mom (aunt, grandma, caregiver) up just to tell them you appreciate them and love them.  Mother’s day is once a year, but a mother’s love is year round.

Quality vs. Quantity

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“The intention to live as long as possible isn’t one of the mind’s best intentions, because quantity isn’t the same as quality.” ~Deepak Chopra

If you were to ask me if there was anything I could change about my parenting I would most definitely rank the need to spend more time with my kids as my number one. Between balancing work, school, and a small social life with family, kid, and husband time I tend to fail, quite a lot. For some reason, wherever I am I tend to want to be some place else. When I’m at work I want to be home with the kids, when I’m home with the kids I want to be out with my friends. When out with my friends I want to spend quality time with the husband (to be fair and honest, I never want to be at work).

I always feel like I never have enough time to devote to any one thing or person. I actually have begun to think of sleep, showering, and other “basic needs” as a “time-suck”. There is so much more I could be doing between the hours of 11pm and 6 am, or in the 20 10 minutes I have to shower. With these restraints, someone is always getting shafted including myself.

I’ve come to realize what I need to start focusing on is quality time vs. quantity time. Some nights I have only an hour or two with the boys before they go to bed. What am I doing with that time? Same old, same old. Wining about how I have to work instead of saying home with the boys (Don’t worry, I see the irony). Yelling, cleaning, and maybe playing or a project. When the boys finally go to bed and I have time with the husband, what am I doing? Playing on the computer and watching something on Netflix. Even if out with my friends, what are we all doing together? The majority of the time is spent complaining about work (and I’m probably the biggest complainer of all!).

I suffer from an egoistic outlook on life, and I’m praying that its not just me. I always assume ill have more time, more patience, more desire down the road at some point. The problem is that I am assuming that there is always going to be a “down the road”. It’s time to face facts. There isn’t.

And it’s not just in the “time” arena that quality and quantity are at odds with each other. This disequilibrium seems to permeate most aspects of my life. I’m paid for 7.05 hours a day at work. Why not try and make those hours count instead of just “getting through the day” as I so often do. Even this blog suffers from it: making weekly goals, trying to change so many aspects of my life in such a short amount of time, always wanting to add more and more and more without really giving anything on the list any semblance of attention in the first place.

I’m not saying I should stop having goals: I love a challenge and thrive on competition, even with myself. I’m simply saying that maybe I need to stop focusing on the “more more more” and start focusing on the “depth” of each of my desires, problems, challenges, fears, relationships, etc.

Maybe with that, this big ball of chaos that is my psyche will finally start to unwind. Maybe not. But trying is always an option. In the simplest terms,  in the most convenient definition, I just need to take a breath and “be”.

Week Two: Time to calm the F*** down.

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“I have so much chaos in my life, it’s become normal.  You become used to it.  you have to just relax, calm down, take a deep breath and try to see how you can make things work rather than complain about how they’re wrong.” ~Tom Welling

Last week, when restarting this blog, I thought that each Sunday I should have a theme to better document the changes within myself (and my family, and ultimately, my world) that I am hoping to make throughout the week.  During the week I can write about whatever strikes, but Sundays are a time for reflection, both inward and outward.  Hopefully I can use this day and time to stay focused on things I really want to accomplish.

Last week I decided to focus on “cutting the crap” out of my life.  I planned to:

  1. Slowly, but surely, cut out processed foods (crap) for me and the family
  2. Stop having such a crappy attitude at home around my husband and kids and at school around my co-workers and “kids”
  3. Stop making crappy excuses for things I don’t want to do: going to the gym, cleaning the house, etc.
  4. Stop spending money on extraneous crap that I just don’t need: Starbucks coffee, more clothes that won’t fit in a month, eating out.

While I realize that these are ultimately life changes I am striving for, I feel like I did good for the first week.  I definitely ate less processed foods and more fruits and veggies.  I tried my hardest to stop spending money (on extraneous items) and stop making excuses when it’s time to make the hard decisions.  The most challenging one for me, the one that will ultimately take the most time to work into my daily life and achieve, was changing my attitude.

I promise I’m trying, but my goodness it’s hard.  I mean, seriously, look at the blog posts I wrote this week.  They really don’t have a “positive” ring to them.  I’m still trying to gossip less, build-up my relationship with my kids, and re-build my relationship with my husband.  The secret is to not get discouraged.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  The problem is I get to antsy and excited for everything to change RIGHT NOW that I tend to be a little…intense (to put it nicely).

This week is, while I’m continuing to work on last weeks items, I am also going to work on this: Trying to Calm the F*** Down!  I get so worked up about all the little things in my life that I am sure I am missing out on some truly wonderful moments.  I need to learn better to roll with the punches, dial down the control freak within myself, and just breath.  I need to yell less, laugh more, and just try to enjoy living.  Every day we are a little closer to the end of the world, not matter how much I freak out, or how much I worry.  It’s inevitable.  I might as well enjoy the ride while I can.

I realize this is all easier said then done, but knowing and planning is half the battle, right?

Sunday Musings: The Weekly Write-Up

  • Week 1: Cut the Crap
  • Week 2: Calm the F***Down

I literally lost a toddler

/ Cassie / 2 Comments

“Any experience can be transformed into something of value. Everything depends on the way you look at things. You cannot have the success without the failures.”

Ok, well maybe not literally.  But what I mean is that I’ve lost enough weight in the past three and a half months to equal the size of a toddler.  A four year old, anyway.  My four year old to be exact.

A third of me is so proud of how far I’ve come. 37.5 pounds since mid-January is awesome and I know it.   I’m looking better and feeling better, mentally and physically.  Another third of me feels like 37.5 is just a small drop in a very large bucket and I feel daunted by how far I still have to go.

The other third of me simply wants cake.  All kinds of cake.

I’m trying hard to stay positive and motivated (see previous blog post about my focus this week) but it really is hard to keep the momentum going.  Some days I am excited about going to the gym or going to a class, and other days the thought of going to the gym makes me want to curl into a ball and go to sleep.

I guess the important thing is to remember why I started this in the first place: to make sure I am around long enough to see my boys grow up and become amazing.

And that is motivation enough for me.

What You Don’t Want to Hear (And What I’m Ashamed to Admit)

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“A mother who is really a mother is never free.” ~Honore de Balzac

Sometimes I really hate my job.  I’m not talking about my “9-5” job that,not only do I get paid for, I also get to leave.  I’m talking about the job I have to do every minute for the rest of my life.  Parenting.

As I pointed out, I’m not proud to admit this fact, nor is it something you you actually want to hear (especially those of you who do not have children).  Parenting is supposed to be this magical thing that you cherish each and every moment.  Chubby cheeked little cherubs love you, marvel after you, and touch your soul in ways that are not even imaginable.  And it is like that…sometimes.  Other times it plain sucks.  Actually, I can go one better, it F****ING SUCKS.

In order to understand this better, I should tell you about my day.  I had a pretty good day at work, headed to the gym and had a moderately good workout.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing and I was excited to go home and spend the rest of the day with all my boys outside playing.  And then I walked in the door.  Immediately, the four year old (M) started screaming at me about how I didn’t bring home a treat in my lunch bag.  When I mentioned going outside, the 2 year old (O) screamed because he didn’t want to wear socks with his shoes.  When they finally made it outside,  O ate something unidentifiable off the ground.  During dinner,  M didn’t want what I made (though it was exactly what he asked for!!!!).  When I got up to clear the dishes,  O projectile vomited everywhere in the dining room.  Once the husband got him upstairs, it was time for M to take his antibiotic…which he hates.  I tried to make it easier, but after taking one sip, he proceeded to projectile vomit all over the dining room as well…after I had just cleaned up the first round.

At that point I lost it.  Like, really lost it.  I broke down.  I cried.  I yelled.  It was not pretty.

M yelled at me that he loved me but I was not doing the right thing.  I yelled back at him that he wasn’t either.

I finally got him upstairs and into the tub and then proceeded to the basement with all the gross clothes and table items.  I managed to get them started in the wash before I completely fell apart.  I just didn’t want to be here anymore.  I didn’t want this job anymore.  It was talking all my strength not to jump in the car and run away, far away. I WANT OUT was all I could think.

And, of course, the icing on the cake of all of this is that my husband remained calm and collected throughout the entire ordeal, even while bathing the two screaming, vomit covered boys.  This made me me feel even crappier about losing it and pretty much made me hate him in that moment.  I sat downstairs for a few minutes, got myself together and then went back upstairs, ready to bake the cupcakes I promised for snack at M’s school tomorrow.

This whole ordeal, from the minute I walked in the door to the minute I walked upstairs to begin baking, lasted literally 45 minutes.

I realize that these are not typical days for us.  Usually, things are pretty calm or, at the very  least, a controlled chaos.  And for the most part I love being a mom.  I love my kiddos more than life itself.  When I think about them not being around I get panicky and know my life wouldn’t not be as complete as it is now without them in it.

But still, sometimes I get so jealous of my friends that seem so free.  I gaze at them wistfully when they don’t have kids to feed or husbands to get home to. And it’s not like I want to leave them (I know I would miss them in the first second out the door).  It’s just that I want them all to not exist in the first place.  Just for a day, or even an hour.

Sometimes being a mom (and a wife) sucks and it’s OK to think that way.

And while I know it’s not something others want to admit in the open, I know I’m not alone.