Lately I've been feeling a bit unlike "me". I realize that I'm so wrapped up in being a mom that there is nothing else in my life. I introduced myself to Cody's mom's friend the other day as "Cody's mom". Later I was thinking how odd that was. I actually said "Cody's Mom" like that was my name. Is that who I am? I remember when Mike and I were first married someone in his family introduced me as "Mike's wife" and I was so offended. I was saying in my head "what, I don't have a name, I'm just Mike's wife?". It's an interesting battle I've got in my own head. Is being a mom who I am or is it taking over who I am? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love being a mom, but there are times when I feel like I'm losing my identity as a person. I suppose since I stay home with my kids and don't have a job (yes being a mom is a huge job...that's a whole other blog though) I feel even more this way. I don't have activities that I do without my kids...ever! I don't remember the last time I did something without them, other than maybe a quick run to the grocery store. So, that brings up the question...is being a mom my identity or is it taking over my identity? I honestly can't answer that right now. Some days I love it and I'm happy that I can introduce myself as "so and so's mom". Other days I feel like I'm completely drowning in it all and that I'll never be me again.
Today I sat and watched Natalie grin up at her big brother as he made silly sounds at her. She got pretty close to a giggle a couple times. Watching things like that is so heartwarming for me and makes me ok with just being mom.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Am I The Only One??
My husband and I were talking the other day about how we've lived in Colorado for close to 3 years now, and we don't have any friends here. That seems weird. Don't normal people have friends, other couples or other parents to hang out with? We don't. I've realized that most of that is by choice. It's not like either of us are antisocial or anything, we just aren't social. I personally have noticed that it's because I don't feel like I fit in here. I've never felt like I fit in anywhere really. Starting when I was young and started a new school in 3rd grade...all the kids had gone to school together since Kindergarten, so I felt out of place. The strange thing is, I went to school with most of those people through high school and I still never felt like I fit in. Now I'm out on my own and still...I don't feel like I fit in anywhere! Most of the people in this town are in college, I definitely don't fit in there since I'm not in college and I have 4 kids. A lot of the parents around here are pretty well off, we're not at all there. I guess in most ways that wouldn't matter, but I'm always worried about being equal to others. I feel like I don't want to have friends because we can't invite them to our house. Truthfully, it's pretty embarrassing, I don't even really like having family members come to our house.
What is it in my head that makes me feel like this. I meet people that have groups of friends and fit in and just seem to have a great social life. I'm jealous of that, but at the same time, I don't want that because I don't feel like I would ever be completely included in any group. I meet people that don't care what others think, and I'm really jealous of that! I wish I could just be able to be myself, do what I do and have friends that accept me for that, but I am always thinking in the back of my head that they never will. I've had friends that I hung out with before we moved here and I felt comfortable with them and everything, but I always had it in the back of my head that they were thinking something bad about me. I felt like they looked down on me because I wasn't skinny, or because I didn't have money to throw around on whatever I wanted, or because I didn't have a nice car, or because I didn't have the nice, fashionable clothes. Obviously, not everyone I've been friends with thinks those things about me, so it has to be in my head. These are things that I'm unhappy about in my own life. I realize that, but what in the world do I do about it?
I was laying in bed last night thinking about this and I just kept wondering, am I the only person that feels like this? What is wrong with me? Why am I embarrassed about my life? I have 4 beautiful children, a wonderful husband who works his butt off to give us the life we have. We've had some hard times and things aren't exactly great financially. We live in a 2 bedroom house with 6 people, we don't have a crib for the baby to sleep in yet, our bed is in the living room so that the kids can have more space and not have to share a bedroom and my kids don't have all the things I would love for them to have. But (yep, I started a sentence with "but", so what?), all in all, we have a great life. We live in an absolutely beautiful part of the country, we can drive 10 minutes and be in the Rocky Mountains. My husband takes care of his family and we are very much in love after 9 years of marriage, there are so many couples my age that can't make a marriage last at all, so I'm definitely thankful for that. My kids are happy, sure they don't get a toy every time they see one at the store that they want, but at least I know they're not spoiled brats. So what is it about this unhappy feeling? Why can't I just accept things for what they are and go out and make friends that I can hang out with. Well, if I ever figure that out, I guess I'll be a much more self-confident person.
Of course, as I'm typing this, I'm thinking that I don't want to publish it because....yeah, you guessed it, people will think bad things about me because of it. Well, I'm doing it anyway. Let's just call it therapy and hope it's the beginning of me getting over it!
What is it in my head that makes me feel like this. I meet people that have groups of friends and fit in and just seem to have a great social life. I'm jealous of that, but at the same time, I don't want that because I don't feel like I would ever be completely included in any group. I meet people that don't care what others think, and I'm really jealous of that! I wish I could just be able to be myself, do what I do and have friends that accept me for that, but I am always thinking in the back of my head that they never will. I've had friends that I hung out with before we moved here and I felt comfortable with them and everything, but I always had it in the back of my head that they were thinking something bad about me. I felt like they looked down on me because I wasn't skinny, or because I didn't have money to throw around on whatever I wanted, or because I didn't have a nice car, or because I didn't have the nice, fashionable clothes. Obviously, not everyone I've been friends with thinks those things about me, so it has to be in my head. These are things that I'm unhappy about in my own life. I realize that, but what in the world do I do about it?
I was laying in bed last night thinking about this and I just kept wondering, am I the only person that feels like this? What is wrong with me? Why am I embarrassed about my life? I have 4 beautiful children, a wonderful husband who works his butt off to give us the life we have. We've had some hard times and things aren't exactly great financially. We live in a 2 bedroom house with 6 people, we don't have a crib for the baby to sleep in yet, our bed is in the living room so that the kids can have more space and not have to share a bedroom and my kids don't have all the things I would love for them to have. But (yep, I started a sentence with "but", so what?), all in all, we have a great life. We live in an absolutely beautiful part of the country, we can drive 10 minutes and be in the Rocky Mountains. My husband takes care of his family and we are very much in love after 9 years of marriage, there are so many couples my age that can't make a marriage last at all, so I'm definitely thankful for that. My kids are happy, sure they don't get a toy every time they see one at the store that they want, but at least I know they're not spoiled brats. So what is it about this unhappy feeling? Why can't I just accept things for what they are and go out and make friends that I can hang out with. Well, if I ever figure that out, I guess I'll be a much more self-confident person.
Of course, as I'm typing this, I'm thinking that I don't want to publish it because....yeah, you guessed it, people will think bad things about me because of it. Well, I'm doing it anyway. Let's just call it therapy and hope it's the beginning of me getting over it!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Decisions, conferences and whining, oh my!
I couldn't really decide what I wanted to write about today, so I decided, why not just blabber about all of it. My brain is running so fast I feel like I can't catch up with it, so I guess I'll attempt to try.
We've had some difficult decisions to make lately. Decisions that would impact our family in a big way. Have you ever completely made up your mind to do something and then at the last minute sort of chicken out on the whole thing? That's what we've just done this week and I'm very happy that we did. I think our family would have been put in a very difficult position. Things in our current situation seem like they might actually start looking a little better, so hopefully we did make the right decision and things will improve. I know, I know, I'm being vague and those of you that don't know the details are like, wait, what the heck is she talking about?! Well, too bad I guess it would take a couple days of writing to explain the whole situation. I would also have to go about 2 years back in our lives to really explain everything. This has definitely been in interesting couple of years!
Today I went to the parent-teacher conferences today for my oldest 2 kids. My oldest son is in 2nd grade. He has a very nice teacher, and he's doing amazingly well. Somehow the kid got some math skills, no clue where those came from. My husband isn't great at math and I failed algebra...twice! But wherever it came from, I'm glad it's there. The interesting thing is that she said he is also a great writer. It seems like kids are usually good at math and science OR writing, but he seems to be doing very well with both so far. That makes me happy. Too bad they don't teach plain everyday-life type logic in school, he could use a little help in that area, but I guess that's something that happens with age and maturity. As for my daughter, well, we were debating putting her in school this year at all. Her birthday is the day before the cutoff date to start school. We were worried about her being too young. Our fears were somewhat realized, but I think she'll be all right. Her teacher said sometimes she gets very shy and babyish and it's very apparent that she's younger...but only sometimes. I'm hoping that the next few months will make that go away. I've noticed that she's matured quite a bit since she started school, so hopefully that will keep happening.
Now for the whining, and whining and whining!!! Why the whining you ask? 2 words....Halloween costumes!! My oldest decided he wants to be a mummy, fine with me, cheap, interesting and NOT a superhero! He won't be able to put it on at school so he can't do the halloween parade, but he actually doesn't even care, so no biggie. My older daughter wanted to be a princess...with wings...haha! I guess that just means generic, girlie whatever. Easy enough, she's got a few tutus, we can get some wings and sparkly crap and there ya go...generic, girlie whatever, not exactly original, but certainly easy. Now to the whining, that would be my 4 year old son. He wanted to be batman, then he wanted to be a firefighter, then he wanted to be superman, then he wanted to be a robot, then he wanted to be a pirate (again, they did that last year). We were looking at some pictures online at all kinds of things. Every other picture I had to hear "I wanna be thaaaat" whined in my ear. I wanted him to be a movie theatre popcorn box...I saw a cute pic online and thought it would be fun, even figured I could bribe him with being able to eat part of his costume, but nope, every suggestion I had caused a horrific "uuuhhhaaaahh" in a high pitched tone along with a stuffing head into the couch and curling up in a ball. OK, so I won't make suggestions for crying out loud!! The result of the whining...finally...he's going to be a biker. Fine with me, he's already got a leather Harley jacket, the rest will be a cinch! Ahh, now this all brought up memories of last year's Halloween mayhem, check out my cute little pirates!
So, how's that for a boring, mundane mommy blog?! Days like this I wonder, is this really what my life is? This is just...boring! But what can I say, I'm satisfied with boring most of the time so I guess that will just have to do.
We've had some difficult decisions to make lately. Decisions that would impact our family in a big way. Have you ever completely made up your mind to do something and then at the last minute sort of chicken out on the whole thing? That's what we've just done this week and I'm very happy that we did. I think our family would have been put in a very difficult position. Things in our current situation seem like they might actually start looking a little better, so hopefully we did make the right decision and things will improve. I know, I know, I'm being vague and those of you that don't know the details are like, wait, what the heck is she talking about?! Well, too bad I guess it would take a couple days of writing to explain the whole situation. I would also have to go about 2 years back in our lives to really explain everything. This has definitely been in interesting couple of years!
Today I went to the parent-teacher conferences today for my oldest 2 kids. My oldest son is in 2nd grade. He has a very nice teacher, and he's doing amazingly well. Somehow the kid got some math skills, no clue where those came from. My husband isn't great at math and I failed algebra...twice! But wherever it came from, I'm glad it's there. The interesting thing is that she said he is also a great writer. It seems like kids are usually good at math and science OR writing, but he seems to be doing very well with both so far. That makes me happy. Too bad they don't teach plain everyday-life type logic in school, he could use a little help in that area, but I guess that's something that happens with age and maturity. As for my daughter, well, we were debating putting her in school this year at all. Her birthday is the day before the cutoff date to start school. We were worried about her being too young. Our fears were somewhat realized, but I think she'll be all right. Her teacher said sometimes she gets very shy and babyish and it's very apparent that she's younger...but only sometimes. I'm hoping that the next few months will make that go away. I've noticed that she's matured quite a bit since she started school, so hopefully that will keep happening.
Now for the whining, and whining and whining!!! Why the whining you ask? 2 words....Halloween costumes!! My oldest decided he wants to be a mummy, fine with me, cheap, interesting and NOT a superhero! He won't be able to put it on at school so he can't do the halloween parade, but he actually doesn't even care, so no biggie. My older daughter wanted to be a princess...with wings...haha! I guess that just means generic, girlie whatever. Easy enough, she's got a few tutus, we can get some wings and sparkly crap and there ya go...generic, girlie whatever, not exactly original, but certainly easy. Now to the whining, that would be my 4 year old son. He wanted to be batman, then he wanted to be a firefighter, then he wanted to be superman, then he wanted to be a robot, then he wanted to be a pirate (again, they did that last year). We were looking at some pictures online at all kinds of things. Every other picture I had to hear "I wanna be thaaaat" whined in my ear. I wanted him to be a movie theatre popcorn box...I saw a cute pic online and thought it would be fun, even figured I could bribe him with being able to eat part of his costume, but nope, every suggestion I had caused a horrific "uuuhhhaaaahh" in a high pitched tone along with a stuffing head into the couch and curling up in a ball. OK, so I won't make suggestions for crying out loud!! The result of the whining...finally...he's going to be a biker. Fine with me, he's already got a leather Harley jacket, the rest will be a cinch! Ahh, now this all brought up memories of last year's Halloween mayhem, check out my cute little pirates!
So, how's that for a boring, mundane mommy blog?! Days like this I wonder, is this really what my life is? This is just...boring! But what can I say, I'm satisfied with boring most of the time so I guess that will just have to do.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Chivalry is dead...or is it?
Lately I've been wondering when we stopped teaching our children common courtesy. It's not that often that you see people hold doors for each other or even say a simple hello when passing each other. What is it that causes this to happen. Has "stranger danger" completely ruined every little ounce of friendliness in us? Of course, you need to be cautious, but is it going to hurt to hold the door for someone when going into the store, or saying hello to a person as we pass them on the jogging path at the park? I remember a few months ago I was going into a store. I had my 3 older kids with me and was extremely pregnant with #4. Not only did the guy (dare I say, punk) walking into the store before me NOT open the door for us, not even hold it a little open behind him on his way in, it practically hit me in the face....well, belly, considering that stuck out much further than my face at the time. I was thinking to myself, if a man can't so much as hold the door open for a gigantically pregnant woman and her 3 kids, what hope is there left for this generation, not to mention my kids' generation?! I don't expect a red carpet laid out before me, and I'm a very independent, strong woman, but once in a while, it would be nice to be treated with just a tiny bit of courtesy and respect!
The other day my husband and I took a trip to the mountains. Before we went we stopped at the gas station to spend a small fortune on gas. I went in to pay for the gas and get some drinks for us to have in the car. As I approached the door to the gas station I saw a fairly grungy looking, 30ish, construction worker type guy walking towards the door from the other direction. Of course I expected nothing less than a door hitting me in the face...yes, the face this time since the belly is gone (o: Boy was I surprised! Did he hold the door open behind him so I could grab it...no! He actually opened the door for me, nodded at me as I walked in and...wait for it, the icing on the cake... When I said thank you, he said "yes ma'm" Yep, he sure did! Now one side of me thought, no way am I old enough to be called ma'm, but of course the other side of me was completely floored! That was the beginning of a very uplifting day for me. From there we headed up to the mountains and had a wonderful day. The fall colors were amazing, the weather was perfect, the kids behaved, we saw a bunch of elk, came back down and took the kids out for ice cream before heading home for dinner. Yeah, you heard right, we had ice cream before dinner. That's how you end a perfect day!
Here's a bit of scenery for you to enjoy from our day!
Washed the car today
Yep, that's right, I am writing a blog about washing my car today...among other things. I picked up the kids from school today and decided to go get the van washed and clean it out. The kids were a big help, they threw all the trash away, which, by the way, was a massive amount of trash. It's unbelievable what can accumulate in the car when you have kids! Of course in the midst of this, my youngest woke up and got hungry, so I'm sitting at the car wash nursing the baby and the older 3 kids are going in and out of the car throwing trash away and putting all the stuff to keep in bags. I'm thinking to myself, this must be a sight to see! The lady in the car next to me looked over and just smiled and shook her head. She said she thought she had her hands full with one. It made me realize how strong women are. I have to admit, when I had one kid, I would get so flustered and think, no way could I handle more than one kid. I would look at moms with 2, 3 and 4 kids and think to myself that I could never do that. But here I was at a car wash with my 4 kids! It amazes me some days that I can handle it. But we are equipped to handle what we're given. I have friends with more kids than me and I don't think I could handle that, but I guess in the end, I could. Not that I'm going to. 4 is enough for me. It just made me appreciate how much I've grown since I became a mom. My patience is worlds apart from what it used to be. Some days I feel like I'm going a little insane, but I realize that I can handle what life throws at me.
On another note, I made a baby wrap today for the sole purpose of going to a football game on Saturday with my in-laws and all the kids. I had no clue what in the world I would do with an 8 week old baby at a football game. I guess we'll see how that goes. Just one more "can I do this with 4 kids" situation!
As for my "what happened today" moment. Well...the baby smiled and was "talking" to her big sister today. I watched them do this for about 20 minutes. It's amazing how much earlier she is starting to do all that than my other kids did. I love watching that and thinking about what their relationship will be like when she gets older. It makes me so happy that my kids have such great relationships.
I have a whole different blog to write, but it will have to wait till later. I just spent an hour getting the baby to sleep and now she's awake again. I think I'm turning into more of a pacifier than a source of food, but that's just one more thing I'm telling myself to enjoy because it's the last time I'm going to experience it.
On another note, I made a baby wrap today for the sole purpose of going to a football game on Saturday with my in-laws and all the kids. I had no clue what in the world I would do with an 8 week old baby at a football game. I guess we'll see how that goes. Just one more "can I do this with 4 kids" situation!
As for my "what happened today" moment. Well...the baby smiled and was "talking" to her big sister today. I watched them do this for about 20 minutes. It's amazing how much earlier she is starting to do all that than my other kids did. I love watching that and thinking about what their relationship will be like when she gets older. It makes me so happy that my kids have such great relationships.
I have a whole different blog to write, but it will have to wait till later. I just spent an hour getting the baby to sleep and now she's awake again. I think I'm turning into more of a pacifier than a source of food, but that's just one more thing I'm telling myself to enjoy because it's the last time I'm going to experience it.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Today....
I've been saying for quite a while now that I'd like to start a blog. In fact, I've probably been saying that for at least a year now. It always ends up that I'm too busy, I can't think of anything particular to think about, I figure nobody will read it anyway, or I just figure my life is just too boring to write about. Today I decided, I'm going to start a blog. It took me most of the day to think of a title, that's the first step, then it took me a couple more hours to decide on a background picture, how I wanted everything arranged, etc... Well, I got it done and look, today is the day I started my blog!
In the process of thinking about all of this and thinking about what to write, the thought again occurred to me, "my life is boring, what do I have to write about?" Then the thought occurred to me that every day something happens. Hence the name "Today Is The Day"! Something happens every day no matter what's going on, SOMETHING always happens. I've always found it interesting when someone asks us what we did today and we say "nothing". Well, you really can't do nothing, not really. Even if you're sitting on the couch staring at the wall, you're still sitting on the couch staring at the wall. So with that, I decided, even if I don't really have anything dramatic or exciting to write about, there is always something I can think of to put in my blog. After all, my brain seems to run a million miles a minute. Maybe this will help sort out the randomness of my brain.
So, what DID happen today? Well, normally I would say "nothing" but I've made up my mind that I will concentrate on the little things that did happen. For instance, we decided that the piece of junk crib we got from someone off of Craigslist wasn't safe for any baby to sleep in. So, instead of giving it away, we destroyed it. It was actually kind of fun, and I took comfort in knowing that no innocent child would be hurt by the monstrosity of THAT crib.
Today, my youngest daughter looked up at me with her big, beautiful eyes and just stared, then she made that adorable cooing noise that only infants can make and it absolutely melted my heart. It was a whole 10 seconds of my day, but it happened, and it's those moments that make everything in life worth living for. You would think after having 4 children that something like that would just be normal, but it never is. I think something like that effects a mother that way whether it's her 4th child or her 40th. I just stared down at her and couldn't look away. Just to think, 7 weeks and 2 days ago I was miserable and wishing she would just come out. Now over 7 weeks have passed way too quickly. It's like that with everything in life. We want things to happen now and then just like that, it's gone. So I'm going to commit to try and appreciate every little moment I have, especially with my family.
Next time someone asks you what you did today, think about it before you say "nothing". You did something. Something happened at some point during your day that can be appreciated, no matter how mundane and normal it may seem.
In the process of thinking about all of this and thinking about what to write, the thought again occurred to me, "my life is boring, what do I have to write about?" Then the thought occurred to me that every day something happens. Hence the name "Today Is The Day"! Something happens every day no matter what's going on, SOMETHING always happens. I've always found it interesting when someone asks us what we did today and we say "nothing". Well, you really can't do nothing, not really. Even if you're sitting on the couch staring at the wall, you're still sitting on the couch staring at the wall. So with that, I decided, even if I don't really have anything dramatic or exciting to write about, there is always something I can think of to put in my blog. After all, my brain seems to run a million miles a minute. Maybe this will help sort out the randomness of my brain.
So, what DID happen today? Well, normally I would say "nothing" but I've made up my mind that I will concentrate on the little things that did happen. For instance, we decided that the piece of junk crib we got from someone off of Craigslist wasn't safe for any baby to sleep in. So, instead of giving it away, we destroyed it. It was actually kind of fun, and I took comfort in knowing that no innocent child would be hurt by the monstrosity of THAT crib.
Today, my youngest daughter looked up at me with her big, beautiful eyes and just stared, then she made that adorable cooing noise that only infants can make and it absolutely melted my heart. It was a whole 10 seconds of my day, but it happened, and it's those moments that make everything in life worth living for. You would think after having 4 children that something like that would just be normal, but it never is. I think something like that effects a mother that way whether it's her 4th child or her 40th. I just stared down at her and couldn't look away. Just to think, 7 weeks and 2 days ago I was miserable and wishing she would just come out. Now over 7 weeks have passed way too quickly. It's like that with everything in life. We want things to happen now and then just like that, it's gone. So I'm going to commit to try and appreciate every little moment I have, especially with my family.
Next time someone asks you what you did today, think about it before you say "nothing". You did something. Something happened at some point during your day that can be appreciated, no matter how mundane and normal it may seem.
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