Let it go

I am so grateful to be a mom to two wonderful daughters, but I didn't realize until lately how difficult it can be. I'm sure parenting boys has it's own challenges which I'm blissfully unaware of, but parenting daughters is emotionally draining. Especially as these girls grow up and start to have all those crazy hormones running amok inside them. It seems like lately everything is a big issue that needs to be talked through, cried about or otherwise dealt with. Someday's it's very tiring and it challenges my patience. I know I've been exactly where they are and I remember how it can feel, but having all these years between then and now can skew my perspective.

As I've gotten older I've grown thicker and thicker skin, in that I don't care so much what others think. I mean, I care about others, but I don't stress out (too much) about what people will think of me if I do this or that. I still struggle with insecurity at times, but it use to cause me so much more anxiety. I know whose opinion matters and whose just really doesn't. I know what matters in life and who I am. I know it's something I've learned mainly through the hard knocks of life, and I wish I could just impart that wisdom directly into the tender hearts of my girls. I hate to see them going through the hard stuff in order to learn this.

Unfortunately, that's not the way it goes. And so lately it's come to my attention that both my beautiful girls are struggling with how they look. Kids can be so mean, both have had comments made to them 

at school about it. Now both of them are struggling with what they think of themselves and these particular comments. It seems to bother my eldest daughter more, I've caught her making comments about not liking her hair or that she's ugly. It's heartbreaking when all I see when I look at her is beauty.

And it doesn't matter how many times I tell her she's beautiful, if some kid at school called her ugly, it must be true. That's her logic and it kills me. I know she's not a minority, most girls at this awkward middle school age are struggling with how they look and how they are changing and they have no control over most of it. She's starting to care how her hair looks, what she's wearing, etc, and how she fits in. Some days it's hard for me to watch her go through this.

I just want them both to believe me when I tell them they are perfect just the way they are. And then I think about the times I've been critical of my own self, of my hair that has no body or super round face. And I wonder if my comment here or there about it has contributed to their views. I need to remind myself what I've been telling my girls lately, and that is this:

I am perfectly made. 

No, I'm not perfect, but I was made exactly this way. God intended me to have flat hair, to have a round face, to not be able to hold a note. And I like to ask the girls, "Does God make mistakes?". No, of course not, He's perfect. I love this verse:

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:13-16

If God created the whole earth and all it's intricacies like the water cycle and weather and seasons and didn't mess up that, don't you think He could handle us? Yep. He did. He made each and every one of us exactly the way He wanted us to be, and like it says in Genesis 1:31, "God saw all that he had made and it was very good." He didn't scrap us and start over, He wanted us exactly the way we are. That's encouraging and refreshing for me to remember, and I hope I can help instill that truth in my own girls' hearts.

Even knowing how God views us, it can be hard to take the mean comments from others or even ourselves. I tried to explain to the girls to just let those mean words go, and not to dwell on them. But I think that's a lesson that's learned the hard way as well. Someone posted this video on Facebook fairly recently and I think it speaks volumes to the whole idea of just letting those things go.

I told the girls about it, but they haven't actually watched it yet. I think I'm going to show them this afternoon, and hopefully it can help them see how important it is to just let it go.

Ten

Ten years ago today, this beautiful little girl came into our lives...

She was inquisitive and alert from the very beginning, and we fell in love with her at first sight.

I find it really hard to believe that this little bundle has grown

 into this weird girl....  

She's still as inquisitive and alert as ever, and beautiful too. And we love her even more today than we did on that day ten years ago when she was born. Lindsay has grown into a fun, unique, smart, loving and adventurous girl. I am so grateful that God put her in our family and made her just the way she is. I can't imagine our family without her.

Happy Birthday Lindsay Lou, I love you so much!

Keeping My Head Above Water

This is a lovely time of year, filled with joy and laughter and lounging around the fireplace playing games with my family. Yeah, right, in my dreams! In actuality, this is the busiest, most stressful time of year. I have a to-do list so long it's ridiculous and I fall into bed each night hoping I'll make progress the next day. Then you throw in parties at work and school, music programs for the kids, special projects that teachers assign that Mom's have to help with and all the extra get-togethers because it is the holidays. It's enough to drive me crazy and call a strike on Christmas. Seriously.

The past couple of weeks I've felt like I'm barely keeping my head above water with everything going on and that I have to do. I told my mom the other day that I hated it and she said, "Well then don't do it all." If only it were that easy!

I think as Mom's we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to "do it all". And it's hard this time of year. I want to do fun things with the girls like make a gingerbread house and decorate gingerbread cookies, play games and go sledding. But then I also need to send out Christmas cards to friends and family, do the shopping, wrap presents and make cookies for this party or that party. How do I fit it in?

Well, for one, I gave up on most of the housecleaning last week. Instead me and the girls made the gingerbread house and decorated cookies and it was wonderful. My bathrooms are gross, but my kids are happy and that makes me happy.

The girls' projects are done because I made them a priority over them playing with friends, and although I felt like the bad Mom at the time, I'm glad they are done and now they have lots of time for friends. I felt good about teaching them the difference between wants and needs and prioritizing things. I know I've had to remind myself that lately. I think my hard work has paid off, though. Most of my "Christmas related chores" are done and now it can be a matter of doing more fun things with my kids. I seriously cannot wait for their Christmas break from school to do some serious lounging! I suppose I'll have to clean the bathroom at some point, too.

Kera's project was to "invent a toy" out of household things that would be used for a gift exchange. She wanted to make a holder for Bella Sara/Pokeman cards. I thought that wasn't very "toy-like" so we concocted a monster that holds them. I have tons of fabric and buttons and stuff so she helped design it and do some of the sewing while I did the detail stuff. She loved it and now wants to make her own! We'll see if we have time!

How are you doing with the Holiday busyness? Hanging in there? 

Tendencies

You know the whole glass half-full or half-empty analogy of how you can view life?
I have a confession to make:

I tend to be one of those half-empty types

and I hate that I am like that.

Life can be going along just fine, no big headaches, problems or stresses and I'll realize I feel "blah" for no good reason. And the frustrating thing is that feeling of blah has a tendency to incapacitate me. I stop doing things I enjoy and become even more critical of things around me. It shrouds my thinking in negativity and I have a hard time seeing the good in anything. It's a vicious cycle. And even though I know this about myself, it still sneaks up on me and gets me when I'm least expecting it.

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year, and yet a couple weeks ago I realized I was in that "blah" state. It surprised me because usually this time of year I'm doing pretty good. Zoom ahead to mid/late winter and I'm on guard for the blahness, but not right now. I spent a few days indulging that feeling, moping and diving into the fantasy world of books and movies to prevent myself from any introspection. I don't encourage indulging that feeling, it's not the best way to deal with it. 

No, the best way to deal with "blah" is what I'm doing now...

I am starting the day in quiet, before plunging into the chaos of getting kids ready for school and all my other responsibilities. 

I am making time to do something inspiring each day. (Yes, that means I'm actually doing some writing! Being inspired is a wonderful feeling.)

I'm getting out, going on walks, doing workouts I enjoy.

I am spending time with friends and being real with them.

I am going to bed at a decent hour. (This is sooo important and yet so easily overlooked)

I am focusing on the good and being grateful for all the ways I've been blessed and taking each day as it comes.

Beautiful and Loved

I had to take a drive today, about an hour south to a smaller town, to pick up the quarter beef we'd recently put some dibs on. That's just where the steer lived his life and where he died, so it's where he was butchered. I had a pretty clear schedule today, so I took the opportunity to spend some time admiring the beautiful valley south of us while I gathered our meat.

I really wish I would've remembered my real camera. It was so beautiful  with the clouds, changing color trees and snow-kissed mountains. What passes for a camera on my cell phone really did not do it justice.

As I drove, I turned on the radio and sang along. I love being in the car alone and being able to sing at the top of my lungs. No one else really likes to hear my singing-if you could call it that. Lately I've been drawn to  the Christian radio station more than any others. It inspires and encourages me, but I also like that I can listen to it with the girls in the car and not have to worry about what lyrics they are singing--they are all good!

It was so refreshing to listen to the encouraging music while admiring the beauty around me--I could almost feel my heart lifting. It made me think that I need to make more time to just be still and think about all the ways God loves us.

This was one of the songs that just spoke to me this morning. How easily we forget that God thinks we're beautiful and his opinion is the only one that matters!

I am reading a book right now about security, which is something that we as women struggle with quite a bit. I am learning about how we need to anchor or feelings of security and acceptance onto God and not all the others things we try to measure ourselves against. It doesn't matter what others think of me or even how I feel about myself. What matters is that God loves and cares for us, and here's the part that gets me--he loves me no matter what I do.

And this song is one of my absolute favorites right now that says just that:

And now I not only do I feel refreshed and ready for the day ahead of me, but I have a freezer full of meat (including the tongue!) to  enjoy!

How to be a Stay-at-Home Mom Without Kids

Transitions are tough. I was talking with a friend recently about how tough it was for her to transition into being a stay-at-home mom after working for years. I think being a stay-at-home mom is tough enough, but try throwing in this twist: the kids are all school aged, and no, she doesn't homeschool.

Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's harder to be a stay-at-home mom whose kids are in school all day, (for sake of abbreviation, we'll call them SHMWK) than a traditional SHM (those are w/ kiddos at home). I'm not even saying it's harder to be a SHM or SHMWK than a working mom, because honestly they are all different and tough in their own rights. What I'm saying is the transition to one or the other can be tough.

It's taken me several years of transitioning into my role as a SHMWK. I had a tough time of it, and my friend did too, and she came to me for some advice since I'd been there, done that. And so I thought I'd share with you what she and I talked about, and maybe it would be helpful to someone else out there.

The first thing I struggled with was guilt. Guilt that I had this wonderful flexibility of not needing to work, kids gone to school all day and freedom to do, basically, whatever I wanted all day long. Most of my friends w/ kids have to work, and those that are home with their kids now will need to go back into the workforce when their kids all skip off to school. Especially in this economy I think my position is pretty rare. And so I felt guilt. I struggled with thoughts of "Maybe I should get a job" and "What do I do  all day?" (It's pretty obvious what you do all day as a SHM mom, but a SHMWK, not so much). But what it boiled down to was the fact that this is the best arrangement for my family right now and Erik prefers that I be "jobless" and flexible instead of nailed down to a specific schedule. And No, I'm no "trophy wife", but since he does own his own business and has some flexibility there, it works better for me to be flexible too. It makes the times when he does get out of work that much better because we can go do fun things as a family.

So, if you are a SHMWK, get over the guilt and embrace your position. You can do so many great things in this role! You might not always be in this place, but you are for now, so make the most of it!

Along with this I think comes the struggle to balance everything. Yes, you are the mom and it's your job to take care of your family. Yes, your primary responsibility, or "job", is to keep up the house, feed your family and do all the other mom things. But it's not like you need to spend your whole entire day housecleaning or cooking. If those are things you enjoy, then by all means, go for it. I do have days where I spend a majority of time in the kitchen, but that's something I enjoy. The cleaning, not so much. At first, though it's easy to feel like I should have this spotless house with the laundry always done and a ton of freshly baked/cooked goods because I was at home. Yes, we need to keep up our house, but you can do other things! Being a SHMWK means you can....

• volunteer in your kids' class--but you don't have to say yes to everything. Don't go hog wild and sign up for all the opportunities to help with PTA (because there are a lot) But definitely get into the classroom and get to know the school, teacher and other kids. It's a wonderful opportunity to be involved in your kids' lives at their school.
• Donate blood or volunteer in the community.
• Visit and spend time with friends that are SHM's, they will super appreciate the adult time/conversation.
• On the same note, offer to help those SHM friends with their kids. I've watched kids for some of my friends while they've had doctor appointments, etc.

It feels so good to get out of the house and give some of your time to help someone else out. I believe that as a SHMWK the one thing you have in abundance is time, so why not share it?

Along with your motherly duties and your opportunities to volunteer, you can also do things you enjoy. Spend some time practicing a hobby, working out, just relaxing--it's okay! Now, notice I didn't say spend all day in your pajama's on the couch watching Oprah and eating bon-bon's. You do that and you will feel like crud really quickly, and your family probably won't support your role either. Being a SHMWK doesn't mean you should just be lazy all day, every day. Yes, it means you have flexibility to do something you enjoy everyday, but remember I said earlier there's a whole balance thing going on? So do one thing everyday that is just for you. For me it varies, sometimes it a workout, or blogging or working on my writing. It's not selfish to do that. I guarantee that if you spend a little bit of time on yourself, you'll have that much more of yourself to give to those around you. If you are running on empty, you have nothing to give to your family or friends.

A note on the whole housecleaning thing: At first I thought I should have all the daily chores done by the time the kids got home from school and weekly ones before the weekend, so that the time I had with my family was all "play time". And although I still try to set aside weekends for family fun, I've changed my mind about the rest. If I did all the cleaning myself and didn't have my kids help beyond picking up their rooms, I would not be doing them any favors. Part of my job as a mom is teaching them how to get along in life, and part of that is cleaning. So, I made a list of all the chores I do every week and picked out the two most kid-friendly chores for their ages now and set up a rotation. Every week one of them will dust (we use microfiber dusting cloths w/ just water, so no chemicals to worry about) and the other will wipe down the bathrooms (microfiber cloths again and I do the bathtubs for now) and they trade off on the jobs each week. They can do their chores any weeknight as long as it's done by the weekend and their allowance is based solely on this job.( I also made up a list of extra chores they could do for extra allowance since both are saving their money for big purchases. Things like helping with laundry, taking out trash, etc.) It's actually more work for me this way because they both need guidance 90% of the time on their jobs, but that's okay because I'm teaching them how to clean and how we all have to pitch in as part of the family. 

So, anyways, I hope that helps any of you transitioning into the unique role of being home without the kids. I'm still learning and working on being better at prioritizing my time and balancing everything, but I probably won't have all that down pat til I'm transitioning into a new role! :-)

Now it's your turn: Are you a at home mom w/ no kiddos? How did you transition to that role? What do you "do all day"? Or if your kids are still at home, do you plan to return to work when they go to school? 

Perspective

This morning, over breakfast, Erik and I were talking about the death of Osama Bin Laden.We'd seen the news last night about it, but had turned off the television before the President's address, so I was hazy on the details. Erik had read about it online in morning and was filling me in on the details. The girls were eating breakfast, too, and Lindsay asked, "Who's that?". She's only just begun to be interested in any sort of national/local news so I started to explain in as kid-friendly as a way as I could.

I asked her if she'd ever heard of 9/11.

Her answer, "Yeah, it's a date."

That's when it hit me. She wasn't even born yet when the two towers went down. Heck, I don't think I was even pregnant with her yet. I might've been, but I can't remember that part of that particular day. I can remember driving to work and turning on the television to see the news. I can remember sitting there in horror as I watched one of the most impacting day in the history of our country unfold.

When I went to New York a few years later for a friend's wedding, I went to see Ground Zero, and I can remember standing in front of that fence looking at destruction still there. And even now, when we travel, I can remember what it was like to do that before. See, for me, and anyone else old enough to realize what happened on that fateful day in September, we have a certain perspective. We can remember what life was like here before 9/11. Our children will never have that perspective. Sure, we will teach them about "bad guys" like Bin Laden and about how awful terrorism is and that there were two really tall buildings in New York that came down after a couple of airplanes crashed into them. We can teach them the facts, but that's all. How do we portray to them why this "dead guy" is such a big deal? Why we even hunted him for ten years?

See, the sad thing is, that she has never known anything different than now. She will never know what the skyline of New York City looked like with the two towers. She will never know what it was like to fly without taking off her shoes to go through security. She will never know a country that isn't on alert to any possible terrorist threats. And up to now, she's never known anything different than having friends' fathers deployed to the Middle East.

Or is it sad? Maybe she's better off already having all those things as "normal". Maybe she's better off not having to had watched/lived through 9/11 and see her country change around her. Maybe she, and others of her generation, won't have to go through anything like 9/11 because they will already be "on alert". Maybe she's better off not having our perspective--not knowing how it was before.

What do you think?

Go ahead, make me cry

As you know, I love to read and I always have. As a result, I've read a lot of books in my life. Hundreds, or thousands probably. I enjoy most of them just for the act of reading, but I don't always remember them. In fact I've been known to buy a book because it sounds good, then get partially into it before I realize I already read it. Oops! Of all the books I've read, a majority of the ones I would call my favorites have had good ol' happy endings. I really like a happy ending--when all the problems are solved and the main character is happy at the ending. No loose ends and no heartbreak. Ironically, the other ones that I really enjoy are the ones that make me cry. In fact, often times I use that as a deciding factor. If it makes me cry, it is a good book. Actually, that goes for movies, too.

http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/Wardrobe

I'm not exactly sure why this is, but it is. And I am not entirely sure it's normal. Case in point: Yesterday one of the girls' gifts from the "Easter Bunny" was the newest movie in the "Chronicle of Narnia", The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. We love these movies, and in fact I loved the books when I was about Lindsay's age or maybe a bit older. I've read them several times in the past ten years or so, but even then I don't always remember what happens in each book, so when watching the movies, things still surprise me. Anyways, since the girls have no school today, we decided to watch our new movie last night as a family. (Warning, spoilers ahead). It was a great movie and when we got to the end, I found myself crying. Even though it was a good ending--good won out over evil and we saw the wonderful changes in Eustace--it is still sad. Rippicheep goes on to Aslan's land, never to come back, and Aslan breaks the news to Edmund and Lucy that they won't be returning to Narnia. Lucy, the reason why the kids even made to to Narnia in the first place and the one who always believed in Aslan, won't be returning! It's sad, sad, sad!! But it's still a great ending, even though it's sad. Weird, huh?

So after the movie is over and the kids are tucked in to bed, I was talking to Erik about the movie. Basically, he doesn't like movies that are sad--it's not necessarily a factor for him in determining a movie is good. Or a book. He thinks that he read a few books as a kid (Old Yeller or The Trumpeter Swan, anyone?!) that ruined all things literary for him because they made him sad and he didn't like that. So, he doesn't like "cry movies". I also know that Kera doesn't like movies that make her sad, and she's kind of emotional so that's easy. She got really upset at the end of "Where the Wild Things Are" and wouldn't talk for quite a while. So, am I just weird that I like books and movies that make me emotional?  


It's weird--but there is just something refreshing about a good cry while watching a movie or reading a good book. It's cathartic, I think. Maybe it's the writer in me that appreciates a story well written enough to pull me in and empathize with the characters? I don't know. I think I may just be weird.

How do you feel about sad books/ movies? Does that signify a good story to you or are you like my hubby and think it's dumb? And what is the book/movie that made you cry the most?