motherhood

Having a moment

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

Today was a day.

Wait. Hold on a second. It really wasn’t. For the most part, it was extremely uneventful. I’m just being extra.

For the most part today was extremely uneventful. We took the puppy for walks and outside time. I “danish parented” when I let Charlotte fill her empty sandbox with water and bubbles. I actually made three meals today instead of finding one to order out for. To be completely honest, I saved my delivery order for wine (cheers!). Everyone got along. No one made their way to time out. I felt like super mom for a moment.

And then…the witching hour (also known as it’s hot this afternoon so we’re all going to meltdown) happened upon us. We’re crate training our puppy so we went out for an hour just so he could get used to us leaving and coming back. I had the brilliant idea of letting the kids play Pokemon Go as we got milkshakes. Everything was fine.

Then something happened with Pokemon Go and Max had a melt down. Charlie was upset because I said she had to use a straw instead of a spoon in the car for her milkshake (mean mom award goes to me). I also bought fries for the kids to share and Charlotte was pissed because they all got an even amount and she didn’t get more than her brothers.

I’m in a mood, but holding it together to make dinner when we get home when the trifecta happens. All within two minutes the following happens: Oliver uses the hose to squirt Max in the face while Max is clearly screaming stop. Samson comes in from peeing outside to immediately pee inside. After I clean that up I go to check on Charlie outside as she is pouring soup into the grass all willy-nilly.

So I got more annoyed. And there may have been some yelling. And then cut to me cutting zucchini for my dinner (no grilled cheese for me) since I am now counting calories again sobbing uncontrollably. Everything annoyed me. Which in turn made me cry harder because I know it shouldn’t annoy me.

Ugh. I hate days like this. And the worst part is that I only get the kids for half time so I feel like I have now “wasted” time with them because I was in a mood.

So at 8:53 at night, when my children should be in bed, but clearly are getting some extra technology time due to mom guilt, I know I have two choices for the the rest of the night. I can continue in this mood and probably wake up like this tomorrow as well. Or I can focus on the moments that were good today: finding new books in the little free library, watching the kiddos run around with the neighbors during impromptu play time, and the lovely wine I have chilling in the kitchen for after bedtime.

Tomorrow is a new day. It will be better. The mama guilt won’t last forever. And I will remind myself constantly that I am only human.

…Then it will change you.

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

I logged onto WordPress to find that today is my WordPress “anniversary”. Ten years ago I created my first blog and tried to quiet the ramblings inside by writing them down for all to see. I’ve had this particular blog since April or 2013. This was two months before my world became unrecognizable. Two months before my dad died. Two months before I entered into a completely unrecognizable relationship. Four months before I would begin running.

There are a few pivotal moments that I can say defined me and completely changed my entire existence of being. Becoming a mother for the first time. My dad dying. Falling in love with running. And this entire divorce process. I’ve been feeling my own mortality lately. Not in the bad way, but in the good way. The “you only live once” and “you can’t take it with you” kind of way. I know it’s time to start making some pivotal changes in my life. But while I know what some of them are, I haven’t a clue where to even begin looking for the direction and motivation of the others.

This divorce has changed me in ways I didn’t even know were imaginable. I’ve gained 30 pounds (boo), become a better mother (yay), lost some friends (boo), and discovered some new found loves I never knew I had (I’m looking at you, camping).

But the true change has come in who I am. I listened to this TED Talk today at the recommendation of a friend (I can now officially say I listen to TED Talks) and while it focused on success and completion in the workplace, I can definitely say I see so many of these qualities in my every day life. Before my divorce I was an “agreeable giver”. I did whatever anyone else wanted, no questions asked. Now, to be fair, I like giving. I like doing things for other people. I like helping. But I realize now that sometimes it went too far. I changed my entire personality for friends and boys. I was a coward. I shied away from any confrontation. The only thing in the world I wanted was to be well liked (cue the absolutely abysmal low self esteem). I had no idea at all who I was. I didn’t know what music I liked. Or what books I liked. Or even what causes I liked. I was a follower…because I felt that made people happy.

But now…I’m different. I still love to give and help out. But I will challenge things that are blatantly wrong and I will fight for the causes I now KNOW I believe in. I don’t like fake (which is what I used to be). I’m not just going to roll over and take it anymore. Not from anyone. If you don’t like me, I don’t care. I will listen to my music and sing it loudly and I don’t care how embarrassing my Fleetwood Mac is! It’s freeing. It’s refreshing. And it’s also completely and utterly sad that it took me 38 years to get to this point. It makes me want to cry. But it also makes me want to rage against that girl that was so passive and complacent that she let her self almost pass her by.

I’m excited for the next few months. I’m excited to try and get back to running. I’m excited to try and lose the weight I gained back when I was in an abusive and manipulative relationship. I’m excited to see where I’m going to go professionally. But most of all I’m elated that there has been a reason for all this pain and suffering, and that reason is me. The caterpillar can’t just change into the butterfly because it’s his destiny. He has to work for it. He has to put in effort. He has to want it.

First it will challenge you…then it will change you.

Anything but that.

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

Yes, you can do hard things. But you shouldn’t always have to. Sometimes the best thing you can do is walk away and say “not right now”.

This is what I tell myself as I avoid something I very much do not want to do, something that I know will not only break my heart into a thousand pieces all over again, but will also create a fiery rage inside me where no one, not even me, is safe.

There are court documents I need to look over and check out. And I just don’t want to. I literally want to do anything but that right at this moment. They are full of more half truths than truths and in between are the blatant lies that I just don’t want to see. I skimmed them last night but now that I need to look at them more clearly, my breath is hitching and I can’t stop grinding my teeth in agitation.

On Tuesdays I am home by myself for about 2 hours. Usually this is time that I relish. As a mom of three and a kindergarten teacher time without tiny bodies touching you and calling your name of few and far between. I look forward to this day every week. I look forward to these two hours where I can be productive or not, depending on my mood. But today, all I could think about was having to go home and go over these documents and I immediately began having a panic attack.

So when I got home I decided that the documents can wait. I was not going to let them consume my time and my thoughts. I was not going to let this person, who I have given so much to already, take one more thing from me without my permission. I should of stood up for myself 10 years ago, but I didn’t. I know better now. I know how to take what I need. I know how to prioritize things so that I don’t fall into the darkness. I know how to say “not right now”.

So I changed my clothes and put on my running shoes and headed out the door. I did the run I didn’t want to get up for this morning. I uploaded some amazing pictures of my class to twitter. I poured myself a glass of wine and began writing this. Because I will get to those documents, I absolutely will. Just not right now.

Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days

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The weekends I don’t have the kids are the hardest. Because it’s not just 2 days, it’s 5. I haven’t seen them since Friday morning and as much as I enjoy the sleeping in, binge watching something that is NOT Captain Underpants, and eating chips that I don’t have to share, I feel like part of me is missing. I feel unwhole. Less than. Lacking.

It’s only been two months with this new schedule and it’s already tougher than I expected. I didn’t expect to feel like this…All. The. Time. My breath hitches when I don’t get a text back within 10 minutes. I constantly wonder if they’re happy. I wonder if I am doing enough. I have no idea how I am going to be able to keep this up for 14 more years.

These are the days the anxiety creeps in the fastest. Where sleep seems to evade me. Where I busy myself with project after project, cleaning after cleaning, glass of wine after glass of wine.

The every day worries get escalated. Not all at once, but slowly, like a snowfall that builds, and builds, and builds until it consumes you like a blizzard. I have a parent-teacher conference with Max’s teachers on Wednesday. Last week when I confirmed the conference I assumed (and kinda knew) that it was because Max is failing advanced math and they are probably going to move him to the on grade level math class. And that he’s a little silly and unfocused at school. And he hates writing. I’ve had this talk before…I know the drill. But today those worries escalated to the teachers outlining all of my failures as a parent leading up to Max failing math. It’s because I fought for them. It’s because I have to take them back to Mike’s at 7 am for school. It’s because I’m not able to come to the class parties.

So now my carefree weekend is filled with anxiety and worry. And I know it’s not going to cease until Wednesday when this parent-teacher conference is over and my littles are home with me.

And then it will start all over again.

We’ll get there when we get there

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It’s been a struggle recently, to say the least, of managing expectations. Not only mine, but other’s as well. I feel like I have them coming at me from all sides: work, home, kids, my ex. Even my dreams have started rustling up my anxiety.

Today was my first day to drive the boys to their dad’s house before school. Every single thing comes down to a single minute. Getting up. Getting dressed. Getting in the car. Driving there. Driving to work. And then doing the whole entire process again in the afternoon. And the next day. And the next week.

I sat in the car today on the way home quietly weeping while the kids sang the Pokemon theme song (why I let them add the songs to our Spotify playlist, I’ll never know). I wasn’t sad, I was simply exhausted. The expectations and the time constraints finally caught up to me and I began to leak at the seems. And guess what? This was only the first day.

I rushed around making dinner before we all had to get ready for Oliver’s soccer practice, calculating in my head the time we had to leave to make it on time and I stopped for a minute and realized “We’ll get there when we get there.”

Getting the kids to their dad on time? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting to work on time? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting my students from point A to point B throughout the day? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting back to the kids after school? We’ll get there when we get there.

Getting to soccer practice? We’ll get there when we get there.

I would like to think this was a life changing moment where my behavior suddenly swung from type A to chilled out mama of three. I know tomorrow morning I’ll still be stressed out, but hopefully, it will start to wane as the days ebb and the weeks pass.

I’ll just have to keep reminding myself that we’ll get there when we get there.

And you know what, we will.

Who we want to be…

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It’s 3:46 pm on a random Wednesday. An insane thunderstorm just blew through so we are all stuck inside. I sit and write while the youngest two destroy the house I mean make a fort in the living room. I sit and sip a small glass of red wine to calm the anxiety I feel over the clutter and mess. I can’t count the number of times I have said “Please stop throwing the ball in the house” on both hands. Each time, there is a little less patience and understanding in my voice. I know if I have to say it again, I’m going to snap. And I also know that I really don’t want to do that.

I love my children, I do. Parenting is the most amazing I have ever done and, honestly, if I could I would quit my job and stay at home so I could have more time with my kids. And yet…it’s also the hardest thing I have ever done, each day bringing on new challenges that, even after three kids and teaching for over 15 years, I never feel quite prepared for.

I feel like I try my hardest, I really do, but it seems that each night I go to bed cringing at myself for some mistake I feel like I made and a prayer to have a better day tomorrow. For some reason, as confident as I am in my ability to be a teacher, I completely lack most of that confidence in my parenting ability.

Part of it, I know, is the custody struggle that I’m in. I constantly feel like I need to be on my game, radiating perfection 24/7 because someone is always watching. I feel like my parenting is constantly questioned and other people are trying to catch me “doing something wrong”. Let me tell you, this is exhausting.

The feeling of needing to be perfect doesn’t only come from there. It comes from inside too, of course. I have always had the need to control everything, it’s essentially the only way I feel safe and secure. Basically, I need to know it and I need to do it. The anxiety I feel when I am in a situation that I can’t control is palpable. So basically, since having that amount of control when you have kids (and especially when you SHARE kids) rarely happens, you can imagine how I feel almost all the time.

I know the kind of mom I want to be: the kind that is patient and not sarcastic. The kind that is understanding and helpful. The kind that remembers that kids are just that…kids. No one is going to listen all the time. Brothers are going to fight. Toddlers are going to tantrum. THIS IS NORMAL. And I feel like I’m halfway there. I’m more patient than I used to be. I have stopped expecting so much from them all the time. I’m learning to live with a little bit of mess and chaos without completely freaking out.

But I am still growing. I’m still navigating. I’m still learning to stop being a cruise director and let them set the rhythm for the day. And yes, I’m still trying hard to not make a big deal when there is a ton of grass covering the floor because they had an epic water battle outside and dragged it in when getting changed.

And I’m working hard to remember that even if today is a complete shit show, all they need at night is a hug, a kiss, and a promise that I love them.

Lost and Found

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I seem to have lost myself.  And my will.  And my motivation.  And I can’t seem to find any of them.

I think back to last summer.  Training for the NYC marathon.  Running almost every day, even in the heat. 50 pounds lighter than I am now (the shame).  Happier kids.  Happier life.  Happier marriage.  I sit here and I wonder…what the fuck happened?

When I think about it, I tend to place the blame on other people and situations.  This person came into my life.  This person left.  Work became harder.  A third baby was added.  Time and money were short, as were tempers and understanding.  All of this things can take the blame for my unhappiness, the lack of motivation, the weigh gain, the drinking gain, the indiscretions.

And none of that blame is actually working to fix the problem.  It’s making me a victim.  And I hate being the victim.

Maybe, instead of placing the blame and over analyzing the past year I can suck it up and move on.  Who cares how I got to this place?  Does it really even matter?  The point is, I’m here.  And I need to find my way out.  I know no one can do this for me.  I have to find my way on my own.  But it’s HARD.

I can say, things seem to be headed in the right direction and my support system, though smaller by a few people, is incredibly mighty.  I’m learning to ask for help.  I’m learning to accept help when it’s offered.  Homelife is becoming more concrete, and sound, and loving.

And now to work on the rest.

I’m not used to baby steps.  I’m not used to slow progress.  I’m not  patient person.  When I want something, I want it now.  But with that, my life seems to be a bunch of random “One step forward, two steps back” mishaps.  So maybe now, I go slow.  Take each day and change at a snails pace. Work to strengthen everything instead of just fixing is for a minute.

Maybe going slow isn’t so bad.  Maybe it’s just what need to find where I’m hiding.

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We’ll all float on Ok.

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

I don’t seem to know who I am anymore.

Not so long ago I felt like I had it all figured out.  I’m a mom.  I’m a runner.  I’m a teacher.  I’m a friend.  Things were going well.  I had a wonderful new daughter, two amazing boys, and a fantastic support system of friends and family.  I literally had no complaints and was perfectly content any happy.

And then I broke…again.

This wasn’t like the first time I felt that I had broke, when my dad had died.  When that happened I feel apart all at once so it was almost easier to out myself back together.  The pieces were right there and easier to find, not scattered over space and time.

I wish I could say I knew the exact moment that it happened, but really it was a series of events that started small, each one separately almost microscopic in size, but together crumbled my world into a million pieces.

I cut back on my running and dropped out of the NYC marathon.

An old friend came back into my life just when I thought I was finally over our past.

I lost a person in my life who I thought was a good friend.

The separation began…and ended…and began…and changed so much that I don’t even know where we are at this point.

Most recently I’ve done things I probably shouldn’t have.  I’ve eaten things I probably shouldn’t have.  I’ve stopped running altogether.  With each passing day, the numbers on the scale keep inching closer to where I said I never wanted to be again.  And the worst part of it all is that I just don’t seem to care.  Not about being a bad person, or losing certain people from my life, or even losing everything I worked for.  None of it.

I feel like I’m on the roundabout on the playground spinning more and more out of control each day.  The sad part is that I know I’m the one that’s pushing it to go faster and faster.  I am in complete and utter control of this and I can’t seem to jump off and just stop. Because I know that when I do I’m going to break even more from the impact.  I know that I’m really going to have to work to find all the pieces and put myself back together again.  Not only in the “now” but in the past too.  The task seems daunting and so impossible that 99% of the time I don’t even have the desire to try.

But then, out of the blue, today happened.  The 1%.  The one glimmer of hope I had been hoping for.

We’re driving to the park and the library and all three kids are squeezed into the back seat.  Charlotte is singing along to Modest Mouse playing in the background while Oliver and Max argued about how many sheep are in an adjoining field.  The sun was shining in the blue sky as wispy clouds float by, my hand out the window rising and falling in the warm air.  I finally felt it.  What I had been longing to feel for so long lately.  A sense of peace and contentment.   A sense of placement.

This is where I was supposed to be.  Maybe not forever, but at least for right now.

And with that tiny feeling of hope, I know that pretty soon I’ll have enough courage to make the leap off the roundabout.  And maybe, just maybe, my feet will actually hit the ground and I’ll be able to pick myself up and begin to collect all the pieces.

Tomorrow is a good day.

/ Cassie / 1 Comment

Some days are for living. Others are for getting through.

I had a whole post written.  I was about to hit publish.  And then I deleted it all.

This morning I woke up from a bad dream and my day got worse from there.

I stressed.  I cried.  I yelled.  I threw a fit.

I wish I could keep myself together better when I get like this.  I get so worked up when I can’t have control over every situation.  When I can’t solve problems that pop up in my life, I seem to lose it.

Today I wasn’t the best mom.  I was a bad wife.  I was a bad me.

Tomorrow I need to do better.

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Teach your children well

/ Cassie / Leave a comment

“So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.” ~ Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

I had a different post I was going to write about tonight.  I was going to post about the fact that today my kindergartener came home on “yellow” because he couldn’t focus at writing time.  I was going to post about how my four year old thinks no one loves him anymore (in his words) because sometimes we are busy with the new baby.  I was going to post about how  Mike had class tonight so it was just me and the three kids and with the above mentioned factors and Charlie going through a growth spurt and for the first time in three weeks I started to think that maybe I couldn’t do this…

I was going to post about all these things and how they made me feel like a failure as a parent.  Then, as I log into social media for the five minutes I have to breathe, I see the destruction that is Baltimore.  I see the peaceful protests being marred by the loiters and the rioters.  I see stores being burned to the ground and people being hauled off in ambulances.  I see a newly constructed senior center being engulfed in flames less than two blocks from the school where I teach and I wonder if MY 25 kindergarteners are all right.  All of this is hitting way too close to home and I feel the tightness in my chest start to rise.

And with that I realize that in the grand scheme of things being on “yellow” for one day is not the end of the world.  And in 10 minutes Oliver will come to me for a hug and kiss and validation and be back to his normal self.  And Charlie will finish her growth spurt and go back to my happy, adorable baby.  And that none of this is catastrophic because we are all loved, and safe and ALIVE.  All I want at this moment is to keep them home, little, and protected with me for as long as I can.  I want to teach them about these moments while shielding their eyes and hearts from them at the same time.

This is exactly what I think as I turn off Twitter, rush upstairs, and hug all my babies a little tighter.  Because right now, we are OK.

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