Category: Me Myself & I

Posted on

Back for a sec

I know I said I needed to take a little break after my Week in My Life, and I do. I just needed to get a few things off my chest first, because it’s one of those days again. Those days that need a little venting…

I’m in a funk for a minute. Here’s why:

  • A big project I’ve been really excited about and spent a lot of time on fell through yesterday, which totally sucks.
  • The Brewers are out of the playoffs. (not life-altering, but just a small contributing factor)
  • I hate when my body doesn’t cooperate with me; I’m very less than pleased with it right now. I need to get some runs thrown in again, but I hate running when it’s cold and of course the weather is now starting to turn. Maybe a detox is in order? (hmm, i have a funny feeling i don’t have the willpower for one, but who knows)
  • I was really looking forward to something that had tentatively been slated for next Spring, but now that’s off the table too. Thanks a lot.
  • Starbucks completely messed up my chai this morning – foamy, watery, warm when it was an iced drink. Not the self-pity treat I was anticipating. (again, not a huge deal, just adding to the shittiness of today)

Yes, I know none of these are major problems and I have so many things for which to be thankful. Don’t worry, I am. I’m just in a mood again and feeling like a brat, so I needed to get that out. There. Thank you. Back later.

 

Posted on

Be Enough Me: A Letter

Today I’m linking up to the fantastic Just.Be.Enough and trying on a little writing prompt. Writing prompt?? Geez, I haven’t even thought of those since school. Eesh. Let’s see if I can still flex any pen-to-paper muscle here, shall we? This week’s prompt was “Write a letter to your future self or your child.” 

I chose to do a combo…

***

Dear D and years-from-now-but-still-Mom-Sexy SM,

D, I’ve said it so many times before, but the day you were born changed our lives forever, and all for the better. I never pictured myself as being a good mom, let alone a mom at all, but you have helped me prove that notion wrong. You are an amazingly beautiful, wonderful girl, and your spirit is incredible. I look at you every day and marvel that your dad and I created such an awesome little person, and I can’t help but be extraordinarily proud to be able to take some credit for that. Yes, I know that sounds sappy and totally mom-ish, but that’s me now. A mom. Your mom. And I couldn’t be happier.

I am so full of hope for you (and future SM, too), and I wanted to let you know just how much in this letter…

 

Hope for D:

I hope you have a very very long, happy, healthy, wonderful life.

I hope no harm ever befalls you.

I hope you enjoy a fun, stress-free childhood.

I hope your dad and I help you create memories that you will cherish forever.

I hope you never have to endure bullying or become a bully yourself.

I hope nothing ever happens to you so that you would feel the need to become a bully.

I hope nothing ever happens to you to make you grow up before any child should. (there are too many horrific ways to end this thought and i just can’t let my mind go there to type them all out)

I hope you never feel worthless, ashamed, abused, neglected, or unimportant. (that list could continue forever, but i have to stop before i start crying uncontrollably)

I hope you always feel alive, inspired, appreciated, and loved.

I hope you always know how much your dad and I (and the rest of our family) love you. You are our treasure.

I hope you know that you can always come to us; always tell us anything; and always know that we will never stop loving you.

I hope you are never judged unfairly at school, on the playground, or eventually in adult life.

I hope you grow into the ridiculously talented, smart, beautiful, confident, charming woman I see twinkling behind those eyes already every day.

I hope you always love me as much as I will always love you. (ok, i’ll even settle for a partial here, since my love for you is and always will be never-ending)

 

Hope for SM:

I hope you and R create the family of which you now dream.

I hope you are one day able to spend the time with that family that you now so longingly crave.

I hope you and R grow stronger in your love and marriage every single day and enjoy a very long, happy, healthy, wonderful lifetime together as husband and wife.

I hope you and R have the strength to be good parents to your children and raise them to be good people.

I hope nothing ever happens to make you question yourself as a parent.

I hope, more than anything in this world, you never have to know the pain of losing a child.

I hope you and R instill trust and security in your children and foster a sense of unconditional love for them in your home.

I hope you can protect D and any brothers/sisters she may have from the evils among us as long as is humanly possible.

I hope you can raise your children to love their family as much as you love yours.

I hope the bonds that have been broken in your extended family can one day be repaired, or at least patched.

I hope your dad finally finds the right path and becomes happy. He’s not a bad man; he deserves that.

I hope you never know the pain of losing a parent far too soon.

I hope you and R can always provide a stable and secure home for your children and encourage them to thrive.

I hope you and R can someday travel the world together, seeing everything this planet has to offer.

I hope you and R can raise your children to stand up for what they believe, even if it isn’t the “cool” thing.

I hope you and R can always comfort and console your children when they need it, making everything better the way parents should.

I hope you and R teach your children how to protect themselves when you no longer can.

I hope you never stop having fun.

 

Love,

Mommy (& 2011 SM)

BWS tips button
 

Posted on

I’m beginning to feel seriously disliked

By my own 14 month old.

Has anyone else with a toddler experienced this, or am I just lucky to suddenly seemingly be the object of my daughter’s disaffection?

The first signs came weeks ago, when diaper and clothes changes on her changing dresser became all-out battles. As soon as I pick her up to lay her up there she begins writhing and kicking in the air, doing anything she can to avoid landing on her changing mat.

This is so crazy to me, because she used to absolutely love it up there. I mean L-O-V-E it. When she was really little she’d get all excited and wiggle around when placed on it for changes. We called it doing her “mat jigs”. And even up until recently she was perfectly content to look at one of her books or play with a lotion bottle while being changed.

But now it’s like her changing mat is on fire or a bed of nails when we put her on it. It usually takes all my might these days to keep her in place so as not to get poop smeared all over her, me, the wall, and the dresser when it’s dirty diaper time.

And I’m kind of ashamed to admit this, but the other night I even resorted to leaning my full weight onto her to push her down so I could get her diaper changed before putting on her pajamas. I mean come on. A grown adult using full-body strength to flatten down her kicking and flailing toddler all for the sake of 1 f’ng diaper? Seems ridiculous, but that is to what I’ve been reduced.

I’ve also been getting “that look” from her a lot lately. That look where she raises her eyebrows and opens her eyes real big, then kind of crinkles up her upper lip and gives a squeaky grunt like no! I don’t want to do that!

Really? You’re ONE. I don’t remember there being a clause in the rule book of life that says ONE year olds get to call the shots. I’m the mom, just trust me right now.

I know I’ve mentioned this one before, but she already exhibits some terrible 2-ish behavior, too. Like the throw-herself-down-on-the-floor-and-cry when she either doesn’t get something she wants or gets something taken away from her that she’s not supposed to have. Very mature.

And if she’s in her high chair and decides she’s totally over eating or sees something on her tray that displeases her, she smashes all her food then swipes her hands across her tray real fast to fling everything onto the floor. Rude.

And the most recent display in this category is the crying meltdown that ensues when she reaches her arms up to you to be picked up but you’re doing something or your hands are full so you can’t get her THAT VERY SECOND. Awesome. Because we’re so heartless that it takes us longer than 1.5 nanoseconds to pick up our child when she thinks she needs to be held.

But this next one is the real winner.

I swear to you, D would rather camp out at daycare round-the-clock than come home with me in the afternoons now. I’m not gonna lie, either. It kinda breaks my heart a little each time and is what has most made me feel like a mommy unloved.

I’m so used to her plowing over any toy and child in her path to get to my arms when she sees me in the door to her room when I arrive for pick-up, that now when she doesn’t even want me to hold her I can’t help but feel totally rejected.

2 perfect examples…

Monday this week her class was on the playground when I picked her up because the weather has been so gorgeous these past couple days. She and another little girl were being pushed in a double-seater swing by the teacher, and when she saw me she lit up with outstretched arms to come get me. Awesome, that’s what I love.

We went inside so I could sign her out on the attendance sheet, and she made an immediate bee-line for the wooden rocking boat in their room, climbed in, and started rocking like crazy. Oh that’s so cute, I thought. I’ve never seen her play in one of those before. Ok, time to go, so I reached for her to pick her out of the boat and carry her back out the door.

You’d think I was coming at her with a hot poker the way she recoiled and grabbed onto the handles of the boat for dear life, wanting nothing to do with me and the nice home to which I was taking her. Hmm, all right.

I finally was able to pry her out of the boat and set her down on the classroom floor since she was trying to flop away from me. Mistake. For then all she wanted to do was run around and play in her empty classroom. The flopping and squealing immediately resumed when I gathered her up to take her out to the car to head home.

Then Tuesday this week I experienced a similar get-away-from-me-Mom episode, again when I picked her up from daycare.

Their class was out on the playground enjoying more sunshine, and this time D was going down the slide when I arrived. She spotted me mid-slide, and I shit you not, she splayed out on the slide when she got to the bottom like she usually does when I try to pick her up even though I was nowhere near her, then sat up and tried to shove a whole handful of wood chips in her mouth with that defiant look on her face again.

What? Like eating wood chips is going to get you out of coming home with me? Puh-lease.

There was no greeting me with outstretched arms this time. No. The teacher had to carry her squirming body and hand her over the fence to me. At least this time I knew better than to put her down when we went into her room to sign out. I may still be there trying to remove her from the premises if I had.

So what gives? What has happened to cause this fall from grace of mine? I used to be the one she wanted all the time. Now it seems like I’m the last one she wants. I guess I more expected this assertion of independence around oh, say age 15, not 1. Is this normal? Or have I really done something wrong to make my little girl not like her mommy anymore?

 

 

Posted on

Finding a little Mom Sexy of my own

I recently discovered a great blog, the Mommyologist (i know, i’m sorry, i’m way late on that one. but better late than never, eh?). It’s hysterical. Mary is the Mommyologist – a career woman turned stay-at-home-mom, and she takes us on her journey through this craziness that is motherhood.

She’s funny, she swears, and she lets us know that it’s ok when we feel like total parenting failures and are ready to pluck our eyelashes out one-by-one – this job called parent isn’t always all puppies and rainbows. Or eating chocolates and drinking wine during nap time, if that ideal is more your style.

She also started the Mom Sexy Revolution over a year and a half ago. SM, what the hell is Mom Sexy? Yeah I had no idea either, but it’s really simple…

Just because we’re moms doesn’t mean we have to be relegated to the frumpy-jeans, bad hair cut, stuck-in-a-rut, no time for “me” brigade. We can still be cute, we can still be fun, we can still rock it. Mom + Sexy = Mom Sexy. Voila!

So anyway, I did a little super-sleuthing, went back through her archives to learn myself a thing or two about her Mom Sexy crusade, and believe or not, it’s stuck with me. And it comes to me at the most random times.

Now if you know me very well, you know I’ve never been one to “flaunt it” or really even consider myself sexy at all. So I’m more surprised than anyone to hear myself saying I’ve found a little Mom Sexy. But I totally did…

I’ve started working out as part of a group of 4 women with my trainer instead of just one-on-one sessions each week, and Monday night was my second group session.

Now for a little background, after the first week I came home and told R I didn’t think I was going to like this because there’s a girl in the group who was a track runner at UW-Madison, graduated 4 years after me, is tiny and petite and rock solid, and just had a baby 6 months ago and bears no signs of pregnancy whatsoever.

So yeah, I was jealous and felt like I was competing against her. Which I totally am not, we’re all just there for the workout, but I couldn’t shake that twinge of envy. I felt like a huge clod next to her. So that didn’t exactly get me off to the greatest start attitude-wise for this little workout group, and was pretty much the opposite of Mom Sexy.

Well this Monday I decided to try to kick it up a mini-notch. I wore a cute workout tank to the gym that night to show off my guns instead of a baggy t-shirt, and tried to feel confident going into the session. I’m in decent shape right now, but I still feel like an Amazon compared to the runner.

And of course, what did she wear that night? A cute little workout tank too and skin-tight running shorts to boot! Ugh. (i feel kinda bad talking shit about her, because she’s actually quite nice and i’m sure they would all think i’m an idiot for feeling this way. but whatever, i just do.)

All right, forget the outfit, you’re here for a good workout. And man, did we ever get our money’s worth that night! Our trainer must have majored in ass-kicking in college, and now she’s going back for her Masters in making-sure-your-clients-can’t-walk-or-raise-their-arms-the-next-day.

But at one point I was doing chest flys with a band stretched around a pole, and my Mom Sexy suddenly came to me. I was looking down toward the floor and thought hey, my abs look nice and flat right now. My arms look really strong. My legs look even stronger as they’re supporting me in this stance. And you know what? F runner girl, I’m the hot one here tonight!

Granted, all those thoughts took place in about a 7 second span, but still. It was a glimpse of my Mom Sexy and it felt great.

So thank you, Mommyologist, for awakening something I never even knew I had – my Mom Sexy. I may not yet be grabbing my butt and boobs in admiration like she does (seriously, go check out her site and videos. she’s got some awesome ‘tude goin’ on.), but I am feeling pretty good about this mommy body of mine.

And for all you other moms out there, try rockin’ a little of your own Mom Sexy. You just might surprise yourself.

 

 

Posted on

Am I?

Am I good enough?

Am I strong enough?

Am I fast enough?

Will D always love me?

Am I setting a good example for her as both a parent and a person?

Am I making the right choices for her?

Will R always love me?

Am I now and will I forever be all he ever dreamed of, or am I just adequate?

Did he settle?

Will I have the resolve to do what I dream or will I just keep on?

Am I a good mom?

Will I be able to always be a good mom no matter how many children we have?

Am I smart enough?

Am I as “smart” as I once was?

Am I nice?

Am I one who people view as a good and decent person, or am I one who’s followed by whispers of, “Oh there’s that girl again”?

Can I take care of everything?

Can I do what I need?

Will we always be happy?

Will we always be safe?

Am I doing the right things?

Am I enough?

 

Why am I doubting?

 

Posted on

Dead man walking

Steel yourself for a heavy one here… Capital punishment is a highly debated and debatable subject, the likes of which I usually prefer to steer clear. But with the 2 executions earlier this week, it’s been on my mind. Specifically, do I agree with the death penalty or not?

And the more I think about it, the more my honest answer becomes “I don’t know.” See here’s the sitch: Say someone murdered one of my loved ones. Would I want them dead? Absolutely. Yes, I know how horrible that sounds, to say I would want another human dead, but I’m being brutally honest here. If someone killed R or D or any one of my family members, I might even want to go kill them myself. Screw waiting around for a death sentence.

However… (there’s always a however, isn’t there?)

Say it was one of my loved ones who did the murdering (or whatever other heinous crime would have to be committed to warrant the death penalty). Would I want them dead? Absolutely not. I would much rather have them sentenced to life in prison so I could at least go see them and call them and write to them and just know that they were still alive. Is that fair? Would they rather spend the rest of their days confined to a cell knowing there’s probably no hope whatsoever of ever seeing the free world again than be put to death? I can’t say for sure, but I’m selfish and assuming the answer would be yes. If it were me I would definitely prefer a remainder of a lifetime of imprisonment over dying, so I’m just going to simplify things and say someone I love would too.

So what’s my answer? See, herein lies my dilemma. In one circumstance I’m for it, and in another I’m adamantly against it. And I’ve tried to put the shoe on the other foot in my first scenario, where someone I love has been murdered, and see how the accused’s family would not want him/her to die just as I wouldn’t one of my own to die in my second scenario, but the seething black hole of loss in which I imagine I would be suffering usually takes over and makes my decision for me. They must die! God, that’s an awful thought to have even hypothetically. It kind of makes me ashamed knowing I’ve thought it at all. And I definitely don’t want to be teaching D that an-eye-for-an-eye is the rule by which to live, perpetuating violence and all, but really, if someone killed part of my family I would unequivocally want revenge. I’m sorry, I would. Call it a character flaw, call me barbaric and savage, call me a beast, but when I picture something that horrific happening in my life, I just can’t see it as a wound that would ever heal. Do I forgive easily? Unfortunately, no. Maybe that’s something I need to work on (actually i’m sure that’s something i need to work on, but that’s beside the point here). Maybe if this unbearable scenario did play out in my life someday (and dear god i hope it never does) I would be able to find the strength to not want to enact revenge and rip the accused’s head off with my bare hands as his/her death sentence. But I really just don’t know.

Then when you bring all the exogenous factors into a death penalty case, the decision can become even more complicated. Take the 2 executions this week, for instance. Troy Davis – a black man accused of killing an off-duty police officer in Georgia over 20 years ago; a case that lacked physical evidence linking him to the crime; eye witnesses recanting their claims that Davis was the perpetrator; a confession by another man; Davis’s own offer to submit to a lie detector test to prove his innocence; an enormous outpouring of support for Davis and outrage at this seeming miscarriage of justice that there was no stay of execution. And then there was Lawrence Brewer – 1 of 3 white men found guilty of the dragging death of a black man 13 years ago in Texas; they chained the man to the back of a pickup and dragged him by the ankles until he was decapitated when he hit a culvert; the crime was intended to promote Brewer’s white supremacist organization; odd, but there wasn’t much public outcry for this one; did you even hear about it?

I’d like to think that the gumption with which I stand behind my resolution that I would absolutely 100% never want the death penalty enacted against someone I love is stronger than my desire to have it enacted against one who would take someone I love from me, so therefore means I’m against capital punishment, but does that count? Or am I allowed to say “I don’t know”? Can the answer to such a weighty question be “well, it depends”?

What say you?

Continue reading “Dead man walking”

Posted on

Our girls

Is anyone else out there with daughters scared shitless about raising them in today’s world of over-sexed, under-dressed, unsupervised, and generally grown-up-too-fast youth? I am.

I’m horrified by some of the things I see girls younger and younger doing, wearing, saying, and experiencing, and I whole-heartedly pray that I will be strong enough to raise D with unwavering morals and values.

I want her to be proud of herself, love herself, respect others (including her elders), and love having me and R as her parents.

I want to give her a childhood full of innocence and happiness, warm summer days and nights playing outside, cold winter ones snuggled in close, and memories filled with laughter and love instead of micro-minis, stilettos, and make-up.

I want her to fully enjoy being a kid, where her biggest worries are learning to share toys and riding a bike, not whether her clothes are from the right store or if she has the perfect body or, god-forbid, the best cell phone.

I want to foster her confidence so she grows up strong enough to respect herself, not feel like she has to do whatever it takes to get the boys’ attention or that of the mean girls.

My hope of hopes is to give her the best foundation possible early in life so that she grows into a wonderful woman in her own right, ready to take on the world with a good head on her shoulders and a positive (yet not naive) outlook and attitude. I know that may sound uber-cliche, but that’s what I want.

I don’t want to be her best friend (although i’m sure that would be great, but my job is parent).

I don’t want to give in to every whine and beg just because everyone else gets to do it.

I don’t want her to have a cell phone when she’s 7 because I think that’s ridiculous; she can have one when she’s ready and able to pay for it herself (read has a job and can fund her own plan).

I don’t want her to be on Facebook until she’s well into high school, if not college, or ever (wouldn’t it be great if we could actually raise our kids to talk to each other, not online chat??).

I don’t want her to start dressing like a college student in grade school because that’s disgusting.

I don’t want her to think she’s entitled to everything just because every other kid appears to be.

I want her to address adults by Mr. and Mrs.

I want her to say please and thank you and excuse me and may I.

I want her to be able to use her imagination to make up games and stories and make-believe playlands.

I want her to understand and appreciate money and not throw a fit when there isn’t a Bentley wrapped up with a bow in the driveway on her 16th birthday.

I want her to be caring and giving, not selfish and absorbed like so many kids I watch today.

I want that amazing sparkle in her eyes to always be there, never fade.

I guess I just want her to be a good person, and I want to have the strength and wherewithal to get her there. Is that too much to ask?

I found this wonderful post today over on Clover Lane, and it’s exactly everything I’ve been thinking about and wanted to say. I don’t want D’s childhood cut short either, so I hope I’m a good enough mom to make hers long and pure.