It’s Valentine’s Day again. Seeing as my poor dear husband ends up on my Truthful Tuesday on occasion, I thought I should take this opportunity to exploit his perks as equally as I do his faults.So, honey, I’d like to say…
Thank you for being my husband for a decade, my boyfriend of 12 years, my best friend for a lifetime, my co-pilot on this crazy ride we call parenting for the past 5 years,my lover, my cheerleader, my shoulder, my comedian, my nurse, my doctor, my shrink (on occasion), my mechanic, my guy Friday,my chef, my coach,my conscience, my everything!
Thank you for loving me every single day and not just on Valentine’s day. Thanks for the million and one little gestures that show me that you love me. Thanks for looking me in the eye when we talk, thanks for allowing me the freedom and security to be myself (without judgment), thank you for listening, understanding, and caring in every way on every day!Thank you for saying just what I need to hear, at just the right time, even if I didn’t want to hear it. Thank you for holding my hair and holding my hand. Thank you for getting up in the middle of the night with sick babies, when I’ve been too exhausted to move.Thank you for telling me I’m beautiful when I’m full of pitocin and the baby wouldn’t drop. Thank you for your smile, your hugs, your kisses on my forehead when I’m sad.Thank you for my daughters. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for helping me survive and find solutions to the million little problems that seem to be a part of everyday life. Being happy and broke with you is better than being rich and unhappy with anyone else in the world. You are the man that I never knew that I always wanted.
When you walked me home that autumn night, long ago, I never would have thought that that would be the first day of my forever. We met as two naive,young college kids with endless possibilities in life but were both limited in our potential for happiness due to misguided decisions and misplaced trust in others.Before I met you, I never knew what true love was. Before you, it was me trying on my glass slipper. I tried a lot of those slippers on but none made me Cinderella. You came along and I was a princess. Suddenly,I was the most important, most beautiful, most intelligent, hottest, sweetest girl in the world….in your eyes.
I know I don’t say it enough, sometimes we just take for granted that someone who can finish our sentences can hear our thoughts, but you are my hero and my best friend. In your arms, I feel safe and loved.In your heart and with you always is where I belong.I love you! Thank you for loving me!
Ok, so its come to my attention lately that apparently, I am not the only Mommy in the world (or even my circle) who is trying to figure out a way to raise a family, keep them healthy and happy, and ,while doing so, keep herself in shape. So, I am proposing that Wednesday, the until now dreaded “HUMP DAY” now become something positive for us Mommies. Let’s make Wednesday the day we come here and share weight loss tips, healthy recipes that taste good ( not ones that taste like cardboard, they help NO ONE!), workout routines that we like and enjoy,etc. I think it could be very positive and who can’t use some extra advice in this area? I mean, usually, we don’t just ask our friends ” Hey, you are in great shape. What do you do?” We’d like to, but we don’t. It’s a little awkward and kinda like asking your fertile friends what kind of sexual position worked best for them when trying to conceive. Sure, it could be beneficial to get some new moves in our arsenal and speed up the process but its a touchy subject and not everyone likes to share, plus how do you ask without sounding like a whack job?Same goes for weight loss. But if we had a place to exchange ideas, or just pick some up, I think it would be helpful. It certainly would for me:) I am currently doing a combination of Weight Watchers and Turbo Jam.Both I love. I started on September 25th of ’09, and have thus far lost a grand total of 25 lbs.It’s good but it could be better. I think I need to change up my food variety.Anybody got any great ideas for yummy,healthy recipes? Or what about tricks to get your kids to eat healthy foods? I have exhausted the Deceptively Delicious cookbook and need some fresh ideas. If my husband catches me sneaking cauliflower and sweet potato into his lasagna once more, it may be the end of me:)Any and all ideas welcome!
Good morning, my lovelies! It is once again that time of the week. The day that we can come to our safe haven and expunge all of the wreckage of the week from our souls! Don’t be afraid, we won’t bite. Just take your load and dump it here! Happy Tuesday! I’m sure tomorrow will be better!
So, that being said, here are my 3 (yeah its been that kind of week) for the day; I wish so badly that my 2 year old could wipe her own little butt. It’s not that I don’t like helping her out but this week my back has decided to go out and it is rather impossible for me to bend over to her level to wipe her without doubling over in pain, which at any moment could become permanent form if the back decides to completely seize up. It’s like a really awful game of slots. I am just praying for no whammies!
I am wishing I could grant my four year old’s wish, to teach her a lesson. Last night, she informs us that she wants to be an only child.Little too late for that one, we have 2 children. I so want to banish her from her little sister for 24 hours so that she knows how much she would truly miss her. Of course, at the mere mention of grounding her away from her sister, she went into hysterics and said she only needed a couple hours!
OK, I have one more. I wish that I could freaking find my back pain medicine amongst all the rubble that is my slowly but surely unpacked house. You know the house I just packed up in January and moved 1/2 way across the country,only to have them inform us 7 days later that we would be returning home. Not to be stuck on repeat but I am perfectly within my rights to be pissed at this situation.All 10 of the times I was searching for my meds in the past 3 days, I have wanted to kick somebody’s teeth in. I have yet to hurt anybody and the meds are still lost in space. I know you are wondering, “Why doesn’t she go see her Dr. and get more?” The answer is simple,with the return home and the downsizing, we lost our insurance.So there you have it, the gift that just keeps on giving!!! Hugs all around!!
I know that it is crazy to expect to have a moment of peace and quiet to myself. I know that there are sacrifices to be made when you have children. I am on board with that. I was not so oblivious to think that my life would remain unchanged. I thought there would be changes. I knew things would never be the same, but I was not prepared for the magnitude; the depth and breadth of it all. When they were newborn, all my time was spend occupying their time. My life effectively became fulfilling their needs, and I did it joyfully. After all, what could be more beautiful then being the world to your child; in effect not only giving them life but now sustaining that life.In the beginning, that was amazing. Fast forward 4 years and add another child to that equation, and now I am the dancing monkey! Sometimes, I feel like they are truly on a quest to make me crazy. There is the 4 year old who will not listen to anything I say. She will look straight in your face as you tell her not to do something, and she will say,”OK, Mommy” And not 2 minutes later, she is committing the aforementioned crime, in spite of your best efforts. This is enough to frustrate Mother Teresa. Add to that the 2 year old, who is constantly scaling the walls and proving, time and again, that gravity truly exists and whom also repeats everything she says multiple times , at the top of her lungs, breaking the monotony only to scream in such a high pitched squeal that all the neighborhood dogs go onto a tempered rage.Do all this, and you have about 5 minutes of my glorious day. Please don’t think this is all there is to being the mother to my beautiful girls.They are, in fact, quite amazing. Sometimes though, even the most amazing child can be amazingly frustrating to you, when all you really need is a moment of silence to regroup and re energize. So, save yourself some aggravation and frustration and never expect silence when children are awake. Get your 5 minutes of quiet in before they wake. Live it, love it, learn it.Enjoy their spirit and rambunctiousness, and the fact that they want to be around you at all because soon that may not be the case.
I sometimes forget how important it is to have friends. I get so wrapped up in my own mind, with my day to day activities and errands, children, husband, that I completely become oblivious to the things that I need, as me, the person. There is so little time left for that part of me that I forget what makes her tick, her wants and needs. A long time ago, before husband and kids, when I was just “Me”, I used to have a plethora of friends. I was every ones friend and everyone was my friend. I don’t mean those superficial acquaintances that we let pass for friendship , as we get older, but honest to goodness, tell all your business to friends. Now, they are pretty far and few between and damn near impossible to make a true friendship.First of all because who has the time and energy to get above a dull murmur of attention to first finding and then investing in a real friendship.I mean once you are an adult with all these other responsibilities, who has time to form friendships, real ones? Secondly, now its not just you. You have to like them, the kids have to get along, and almost impossible, the husbands have to like each other and not annoy the hell out of the potential friend. So, we are looking at what , a 1 in a million chance?So, definitely near the impossibility level. So, we must cherish the friends we have who knew us when we were us, before we became who we are:)We also must be open to new friendships, no matter how impossible they may seem. Sometimes friendships find us, when we least expect them. I still have my friends from when I was “Me” but we have either grown up, grown apart, moved apart or moved on.Some of the friendships have grown together and evolved into deeper more meaningful friendships and some have devolved or disappeared completely. But every once in awhile, someone comes along and they feel like a forever friend and those are the ones who usually end up in it for the long haul.I have a friend that I met in college and we have been through holding each others hair in college and going to frat parties, being in each others weddings, pregnancies, children, jobs.A hundred years could pass and we always can pick right back up where we left off. That is true friendship. To find that in adulthood, is amazing. When you find a friend, a real ,honest to goodness friend, who you can talk with, laugh with, and most importantly be yourself and not feel like you are being judged or on an interview;nurture those friendships, put your heart and the time into them.They will grow like a garden if you give them the attention they deserve and you will be happier having done so. As adults, we let a lot of the luxuries of life disappear because we feel like we have to give all of ourselves to our families and careers. But if we don’t keep something for ourselves, really what do we have to give them? So, don’t underestimate the power of a good friend. Sometimes they can be your lifeline back to the real “you”.
My 4 year old daughter has wanted to be a “movie star” since she saw Eloise goes to Hollywood. Not that I think she really knows what that means or what it entails but I have convinced myself that I will never be the shatterer of hopes and dreams when it comes to my girls. If they want to do it or be it, I’m going to support it because we all need a cheerleader.To help her achieve this lofty, if not almost impossible goal, I submitted her photos to a prestigious modeling agency, they called us in, and then they agreed to represent my 4 year old.She is pretty cute, if I do say so myself:), and I figured what a better place to start than some print work. Of course,fast forward a couple months later, she books her first job. Its a commercial. Amazing right? No, well, it was to us. She was excited, our friends were excited, our family was excited, myself, I was too exhausted from organizing an unexpected relocation to really comprehend how exciting it was. It was to be a commercial for a local car dealership. We were in set the mandatory 15 minutes early, of course we had been sitting outside in the car for a 1/2 hour before that but we couldn’t come in, per instructions from our agency. Apparently, its unprofessional.We walk in the door with our 4 outfits they asked me to bring, of course they left her in the faded jeans, ugg boots, and long sleeve t-shirt and navy polo she walked in with. Oh, that is with the exception of removing the polo (which was the only cute part of the entire outfit because it was the riding to the shoot outfit..not the actual outfit for the shoot:) I was all very surreal, hair and make up on my 4 year old.She sat straight in the chair , jibber jabbing the make up artists head off. We exchanged niceties and she told me how bright and beautiful my daughter was, something a mother can never hear too much of. Then we began the actual shoot, or what I’d like to refer to as “the train wreck of 2010”. My daughter was “the daughter”, to the family in the commercial. There were like 10 adult actors and my 1 child, did I mention she had never even done a print booking. Talk about putting all of your eggs in one basket. Jeez. It starts out the pretend Dad has to lift my little girl into the back of a pickup.Oh my, poor guy. My daughter is very tall for her age, she is like 45 inches tall and around 53 lbs. She is rock solid. This guy was about 5’10” and having trouble lifting my child. She was more than half his length and its awkward to lift a kid that tall, I should know. I looked on with pity and horror as this man struggled.My daughter just sat there, like a deer in headlights, except for the occasional cheese she tossed in the general direction of myself or the camera ( which she was not suppose to be looking at because she was supposed to be looking at her damned fake parents!)But I stood there, silent watching it all happen because Mom’s (like children) are on set to be seen and not heard. I was there strictly for moral support and legal reasons.They eventually finish the 15 or so takes, my daughter is totally confused by the people moving their mouth feigning conversation with no actual sound coming out.It was all very overwhelming for her. The bright lights,the strange man lifting her up..which by the way, every time he lifted her up, her shirt lifted up on her belly.She’s 4, so she paid no attention, but the adults (not even the fake Mommy…oh, you so know she doesn’t really have children)not one of them thought to pull her shirt down or tell her to do it. It was very frustrating.This could go on for days and it felt like it did. Let’s just sum it up by saying she is 4! She was tired , she was hungry, and she was overwhelmed but she didn’t have a meltdown, and she didn’t cry, and she didn’t act like a brat.She did everything they told her to do, to the best of her 4 year old ability. That was a long day and there is so much more that I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you:) She did ,however, at the end of the day, as we were leaving the shoot look me in the eyes and say, “Awww, dang it Mommy.It was my first commercial and all I got was this sparkly new hairpin!” I chuckled to myself, I guess that paycheck and all that excitement didn’t count for much..because , in her mind, all she got out of the day was “that sparkly new hairpin”. I asked her if she wanted to still be a “Movie Star”. She said ,”Sure Momma. I bet when I’m on Disney channel, they’ll give me all kinds of sparkly(SPark-A-LEE) new hairpins!”LOL. Keep on dreamin big, baby!
Disclaimer: This is in no way, shape, or form a dig at the process or my agency, this was about the train wreck that I had to watch my kid be part of because of her inexperience. It was like helplessly watching a car slide off into the ditch.Or watching your baby fall when learning to walk for the first time.It was inevitable, and you couldn’t stop it, it was just the circumstances and our naivete. We are looking forward to the next time, we’re going to fishtail…on purpose!
Good morning and happy Tuesday to you all. It’s been a long week of carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Here’s where Mommies can come to vent and get rid of some of that unwanted weight, metaphorically speaking anyways. Though, the more I think of it, there could very well be a link between carrying the weight of the world and holding a little extra baggage around our middles! But that’s another post altogether! LOL Today, we’re gathered here to vent and unload. You can comment anonymously if you prefer. I just want you to get it off your chest and off your mind. You’ll feel better, I promise. I’ll go first; Sometimes, when my 4 year old goes all Miley Cyrus mouthy on me and proclaims ( at the top of her lungs, no less) “I hate you Mother(Mudd-Da)!!” , usually for the infraction of telling her it’s time to put away her toys and go to bed ( apparently between 3-4, that became a crime punishable by death).On “those” occassions, sometimes I wish I wouldn’t be given the worst mother of the year award and could in fact respond , ” Oh yeah sister? Well..,ME friggin Too!!!!!!!” Of course, I wouldn’t mean it by any means( well not past that instant anyways)but it sure would be refreshing to have the option:) Wow! I feel better already just sharing it with you girls.Thanks for the love and support. Next time, let’s do this over coffee! Oh sweet catharsis, have a delightfully guilt free day of mothering! I know I plan to!
Ever have one of those weeks where you are so tired that you can’t even see straight? I’m sure, as Mommies, you have all been there. Those nights when you are up all night with a sick child, or feeding a newborn, or if you are really blessed both. Yes, we have all been there. I am not asking for pity:)LOL I am merely sharing the very interesting, albeit scarey, scenario that I experienced a couple days ago in a hotel bathroom . Wow, that sentence sounded way more exciting that what actually happened. No, there were no seedy actions taking place in the Somerset Pennsylvania Hampton Inn. Seediness would imply that something of interest actually happened.What I am referring to is something that has probably, in one shape or form, happened to most of us. I just got so darn busy, juggling so many things,that I had a week where I actually forgot to eat( as unbelievable as that does sound)and I’m pretty sure I forgot to sleep..well, except for those 3 hours I caught on at least 3 out of the 5 nights of that week.Anyways, apparently if you keep this schedule up for more than a day or two, it can be dangerous. Really!I know this because I was so tired after arriving at the hotel that I literally stumbled into the shower, with barely enough strength to lift the shampoo bottle, then rinse, lather and repeat…ok, I lied, I didn’t repeat…way too much work. This all was the culmination of a week of packing, parties, MNO’s, trying to spend as much time as possible with the people we loved and were leaving behind, and just life. It was totally worth every second of sleep I had forgone, or so I had thought. That was until, after steppig out of the shower and grabbing the nearest clean thing to me to put on, I decided to dry my hair. Not until my 2 year old daughter came into the bathroom and looked at me like I was completely insane( you know the look I give her when I walk into the bathroom and she has about 3 inches of handsoap on her 2 tiny hands) did I realize that I was running my hands under the water in the sink, while I was drying my hair! Now, isn’t it bad to play with electrical devices while immersed in water? I have decided I must get more sleep, no matter the cost. I know I am a crazy brilliant multitasker (LOL) but I don’t want to die for it! So, the moral of the story is Mommies need sleep1 Repeat after me, Mommies need sleep!