Sunday, November 28, 2010

Best Mom Tip #113: Repeat after me

I can not do this all by myself. I can NOT do this all by myself. No matter how hard I try, I can not be or do all I expect without ever failing.

Week before last I failed my daughter and I can't let it go. For about 10 minutes she was alone and unsupervised in the world. She did just fine. She didn't seem upset, just confused I wasn't there as she made her way home by herself. Nice neighbors kept an eye on her so she was never really alone.

But I wasn't there. I failed. I fell asleep and didn't go get her from the bus. The boys were sick and I had been up most of the night. I was sick and had that achy joint feeling and was cold from the inside out. I sat down for two minutes and I fell asleep.

I keep thinking about it and wondering what in the world I can do to prevent something like that from happening again. My most important thing is to keep her safe and protected. I am eaten up with guilt and fear.

Part of what is hard is that I regret her having to grow up and be responsible for herself. When I was growing up I felt a great weight to be responsible for myself--far more than my parents themselves placed on me. The circumstances of my family's life made me feel like I needed to take care of everything I knew how to do in order to do my part for our family.

Here I am, with no external stresses, having given up my career to focus on my children and I STILL required my child to step up and take care of herself. When I went to work I paid people a lot of money to make sure my kids were watched at all times. I could (and did) chew people up one side and down the other when I didn't feel like they took care of my children the right way.

There is no one here to blame but myself. I can't threaten to take my business elsewhere. It is humbling to know that I am not worth the money. Of course, I am unpaid so I guess you get what you pay for.

I just can't seem to get over the fact that even after devoting my daily life to taking care of my kids, I have still managed to let a pretty big ball drop. I am humbled. And it is not a great feeling.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Best Mom Tip #112: Hug your kids again and again and again and ....

Schmaltzy, I know. But my very dear friend Cheryl lost her father in an accident this week and every day since then I've over-hugged my children. I know that it is over-hugging because they keep trying to squirm away.

I know that life is precious. I know it can change in an instant. Even so I get caught up in the minutiae of my life and I forget the big things. I get weighed down with questions about my purpose and my usefulness. I feel pointless and like I'm not really doing anything particularly interesting with my life. I wonder what I could be doing to live bigger, but I don't have any good ideas and that is somehow even more depressing.

When I hug my children these doubts go away. They snuggle their sweet faces into my neck and I feel like the most important person in the world. I am not sure what I should be or will do with my life. Until the lightening bolt of inspiration strikes, my children's hugs tell me that I am where I need to be. That is enough for now.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Best Mom Tip #111: Buy an duster extension pole

I hosted a baby shower over the weekend and since it was at 10:00am I had to actually dust the house. When I have parties later in the day I just assume that there won't be enough light for people to see all the dirt.

But this one was when the sun shines on the most of my house so I decided to dust the chandelier. I bought this new extender thing with a "microfiber duster" and it worked really well. It also allowed me to discover the spoon stuck in one of the lights of the chandelier.

That's right. A spoon. It's a Mickey Mouse spoon, in fact. I have no idea how a spoon wound up in my light fixture that is approximately 20 feet off of the floor. It's still there. I have faith that my extender duster is going to help me out just as soon and I have time for a pointless, tedious task.


(diet update today)

Friday, November 5, 2010

Best Mom Tip #110: Kiss a baby's fingers

I realize that if you don't have a baby, this is the kind of advice that might precede your meeting a policeman. But I do have a baby and he really loves it when I kiss his fingers.

He giggles and coos and sometimes laughs out loud. His sweet little eyes look into mine and he seems absolutely content. Although the baby phase is tiring, I love how easy it is to make their whole world feel complete. Sweet baby.

In other news, Ricky Gervais made ME laugh out loud when he was the celebrity guest on Sesame Street. Imagine him trying to convince Elmo that he is, in fact, a celebrity. Pretty funny stuff.

Get your laughs where you can, I say. Even baby tickling and children's programming.

(another diet post if you're interested)

Monday, November 1, 2010

Best Mom Tip #109: Step away from the candy

I am stealing my children's Halloween candy. I know that it is expected, but it is not helping with my problem of not being able to wear any pants without elastic in them. Also, the children seem to notice that stuff is missing.

Charlotte separated out a very large pile that she said we could have, which I thought was awfully nice of her. Griffin just keeps asking if he can eat the giant tootsie pop. Speaking of tootsie pops, Charlotte ate a mini one and when she got to the center she said, "what is this in the middle?" I said, "that's the tootsie roll. Do you know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?" Then I sang "whatever it is I think I see..." She looked at me funny and said, "soooo, I can eat it?"

Last night after I got them out of their Spiderman and Spidergirl costumes I snuggled Charlotte in her bed and said, "I love you, Spidergirl." She replied sleepily, "I love you, Spidermommy."

It's worth the damage to my diet to see their delight, explain tootsie rolls, and watch them throw their webs. I love Halloween.