Making Changes

For most of my life I have had a method to my madness, an order in my chaos, a...well, you get the picture. I have always had a mess and it has never bothered me too much. Until recently. I now have two kids; a five year-old daughter and an almost-two-year-old son. I keep my house clean (I scrub floors, dust, clean toilets, showers etc.), but it is cluttered. My daughter entered preschool this past August, my son turned hell-on-wheels around 10 months old when he learned how to walk. They are both extremely loud, fun, loving and, like most kids, they test my patience on a daily basis. I knew I was in desperate need of a change but since my husband and I purchased our dream home right after my son was born, unfortunately being a stay-at-home mom was not an option. Although I am still pushing or either that or finding a part-time job before my daughter enters kindergarten, I have to do something different. I am away from home the whole day for work, three days I end up at my parents' house and to get my kids to leave their house is like pulling teeth. One evening a week I take my daughter to gymnastics. Basically, like all moms, I am BUSY. I thought buying a bigger house would help alleviate the clutter but really, it just spread it out. It grew. People decided that we had room so they could buy bigger things and my kids are my parents' only grandkids and they, along with my brother and sister, are very generous. It is actually a quality I cherish about my family. But it is taking its toll on my kids. Especially my daughter. She is starting to seem ungrateful and entitled which is not how I was raised and it is definitely not the way I want my children raised. While helping my dad pick out a Christmas gift for my mom at a local bookstore a book on one of the feature shelves caught my eye. "One Year to an Organized Life" by Regina Leeds. It has a row of yellow rubber duckies on the front of the book. For anyone that knows me, I spent a good chunk of my life collecting rubber ducky junk and because it is a book on de-cluttering and organizing, it is almost ironic and a sign wrapped in one package. The book is pretty straight-forward. It tries to slowly incorporate organizing and de-cluttering into your life. So far I am on the first month which is getting to the root of your un-organization and trying to create a schedule that works for you then you tackle your kitchen. I like to jump in head-first but the book stresses the importance of the first two items so that is where this blog comes in. I am bringing it back after a two-year hiatus. I know the root of my mess. It is my mother, but not in a bad way. My mom grew up in a large family that didn't have much of anything. They made their own clothes and didn't have indoor plumbing until she was at least in her teens. It wasn't uncommon for the people in the area but you see what I am saying. Basically, if they had an extra button, they saved it and if someone gave you a gift, you cherished it. Unfortunately, in today's throwaway world, that doesn't work so well. My mom taught us the way she grew up. You don't take anything for granted. That being said, I am very proud of myself for throwing away the blender we got for our wedding (almost 8 years ago). We have used it maybe twice...maybe. A piece broke off when we moved and after that it didn't work so well. We found out the one time we used it in the last year. As of tonight, it is in the garbage. It feels good. I may replace it eventually, I may not. We will see. I also cleaned out a cupboard in my kitchen where I keep some medicine for easy access. This weekend I plan to do a lot more and finish up the kitchen. Tomorrow and Friday I am going to get rid of the things I don't use anymore, then I am going to reorganize my kitchen to make it more efficient. I am also going to go through my bath towels. Not because the book tells me to but because we have a shit-ton of them and I got sick of washing two loads of towels and trying to find places to put them. How many towels does a household of four people really need? I guarantee you the magic number is not 25.

Imperfect

I consider myself to be a good mom. I am not superior to anyone else and try not to judge others on their parenting skills. I use colorful language that is deemed inappropriate by many people. I am pretty careful when I use it but I have been known to slip in front of my daughter a time or two. There are a lot worse things than her learning a swear word.

I understand the obsession with trying to be a perfect parent. I try really hard. For some reason I always end up disappointed in myself. Slowly (very, very slowly) I am accepting that I am not, in fact, perfect. (Shh, let's just keep that between us.) I feel like I am compared to other people all the time. I find myself comparing me to these same people and finding how they are better at other things than I am. Then jealousy kicks in and I start to lose sight of what I feel are my good qualities. I find myself having the same insecurities that I did with my first pregnancy. Every now and then, I need to reassure myself. So here goes:

Sure, I might let my daughter watch more Dora than some would consider good but it keeps her entertained while I get dishes done and food on the table for my family (not to mention, she is starting to speak a tiny amount of Spanish). I might not feed her a perfectly balanced diet but unlike many kids, she doesn't know what a McDonald's happy meal is because I cook for her. I felt pressured into breastfeeding by every person I encountered. I did end up pumping but breastfeeding was not something I was comfortable with and unfortunately, I let people who don't even matter make me feel like I would be a bad mother if I didn't try. It makes me mad to think about how so many people took advantage of my new mom insecurities to push their agenda. Screw that this time around. I am stronger and more confident. If I want to breastfeed, I will, and if I choose not to, it isn't anyone else's damned business. My daughter is happy, healthy and loved. I may be imperfect but God chose me to be the mother of my children. If someone doesn't like it, they can take it up with Him.

Its been awhile..

April 12th to be exact but in my defense I have been a bit busy. Except two weekends in August I have been out of town every weekend. EVERY weekend. I have been to my cousin's graduation, my sister-in-law's graduation, back to my hometown two weekends in a row to see some family from out of town, I have been to my sister's, my brother's, my in-laws', a family reunion and, well, I think that might be all. Mark asked me last week what I was thinking for Labor Day weekend. I said "nothing". I mean it, too.

Even though my summer has been very (VERY, VERY) busy, it has been full of people that I love dearly. I babysat my cousin when she was three. THREE. Now she is 18. Mark's sister was eight years old when I met her. His other sister was six. They are so grown up now and I couldn't love them more if they were blood related. I was able to see my cousin for the first time in about 15 years. I met his wife and the three girls they have between them.

See what I mean? My heart is so full it could burst at any moment. And that's not all! I am pregnant and due in March.

I am so blessed.

Open Letter to Skechers

I started this blog to document our lives for our families. I don't intend it to be a soapbox where I preach about right and wrong. But I had to write this extremely long post.

Every Saturday morning I look forward to breakfast with my beautiful two year old daughter. I love watching the news until 9:00 and after that a cartoon comes on. Every time it comes on my daughter says "I want to watch this, mom." I admit that I kind of like watching it with her. I even get the theme song in my head. Of the course, with that comes the dozens of commercials pushing toys, shoes, games, etc. The shoe commercials are mostly, if not all, for Skechers.

Let me say this now, I love Skechers and have had many pairs. Their slip-on shoes got me through most of my pregnancy because my feet wouldn't fit into my other shoes (and I didn't have to bend over to tie them). However, I saw something that made me do a double take. They are now advertising for Shape Ups FOR GIRLS! The pair I saw starts at the tiny size of 2.

Is our society taking things too far? I once saw that a company made gym equipment for children. Miniature treadmills and many other things in vibrant colors. It was on the news a few years ago but they interviewed someone and said that children should be getting the majority of their exercise by playing outside. That interview always stuck with me. We are pushing too hard and these shoes are geared toward girls at an age where the only thing they should be worrying about is which swing they are going to choose.

As parents we need to teach our kids healthy habits not buy them shoes that have uneven soles to tone legs that don't need to be toned. Girls have a hard enough time during and after puberty. Our bodies go through so many changes. We get made fun of for having boobs, not having boobs, having curves, not having curves. I had a "friend" tell one of my other friends (behind my back of course) that my boobs wouldn't be so big if I wasn't so fat. Nice. Especially considering that I wasn't fat. I was within a healthy weight range for my height. I tell myself that now but at the time, it hurt and it caused a lot of emotional issues for me, ones that still creep up from time to time. Why do we want to start body issues in our daughters? I never want my daughter to hear the things that I heard. I know I can't protect her from every comment but I will be doing everything I can to make sure she knows that God made her and nothing he makes is imperfect.

So, Skechers, it is my opinion that when you are marketing something with the word "girls" in the title maybe you should stick to sparkles, lights and designs. Just a thought.

Ooh, craftiness

About four years ago I taught myself to knit, kind of. Yay me, right? I started with small needles and thin yarn and it took me forever to knit a section of a scarf so I chalked it up to sucking at knitting and quit. Before that I had promised to knit my mom a scarf.

A couple months ago I read this post and I decided to buy bulkier yarn and bigger needles. I started to use http://www.knittinghelp.com/ as Allison suggested. She is so smart because that website ROCKS! It taught me an easy way to cast on. And back came my motivation to conquer knitting. I decided to do another scarf for my mom. I chose a skein of yarn. I did not make it far before I found another color that she would love more. I decided to do one in turquoise and surprise her with it. It wasn't long before I was almost finished. I can't believe how fast I could make a scarf. Of course I have a hole in it. It isn't a dropped stitch but I don't know how I put it there.

My mom loved it. She laughed and said that she didn't think I would ever finish it. Obviously she knows me well enough to keep her expectations low. Here it is:

I am in the middle of another scarf, the one I had originally started this last time. I have learned a lot with my first one. First, pay attention. Second, it will take more than one skein of yarn and they need to be the same lot number and you may end up digging through a lot of yarn to find a few with the same lot number. Three, do not mess up your mom's scarf because the hole you left in there will be noticed the minute she pulls it out of the gift bag. And it will be the first thing she comments on (or maybe that was a good thing. You know, keep the expectations low).

After this next scarf is done, I plan to try a pattern or two. Wish me luck.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

If you didn't figure it out by the title, today is my dad's birthday. We went over for lunch. Amelia and I stayed until after supper or in her case junk food. She loves her "Papa" so much (and her "Nana" too).

My dad is an easy going, happy person. He has taught me a lot throughout my life. The most important thing I have learned (besides a good work ethic) is to let things go. It isn't always easy and I can't say that I always follow that advice but I always try. I am usually a happier person when I do.

Happy Birthday, Dad!! Love you!

Bad Dreams

I have officially entered new parenting territory. Nightmares. Three or four nights this past week (and a few the week before) Amelia has woken up at least once if not two or three times screaming. This has happened before but not as often as lately. Tonight she wasn't in bed more than 20 minutes before she started crying. I went in, comforted her and went back to the living room. Five minutes later she was crying again.

I am starting to wonder if she is getting teeth. She has been grabbing at her mouth. I don't know if that would cause bad dreams but she has never NOT slept through the night without good reason. I can't feel any teeth but she did this for WEEKS before her i-teeth came in. Tonight I gave her some ibuprofen. Hopefully that will help her get a good nights sleep.

I won't complain if I get some sleep in the meantime.