Lots to learn

Well, I learned a lot this past weekend.

For one, I learned that I have a really, REALLY big bum. That is according to my three year old, who, incidentally, also pointed out this weekend that my eyes are wrinkly. Hmmmm.

I learned that I can't say or hear the word "fool" without thinking about pants being on the ground.

I learned that unless I intend to buy it, or am willing to make quite a scene at Michael's, I probably shouldn't ever put the bumblebee hat on my daughter again, even if she looks so cute and wants it so bad. (Where did she get this obsession for hats and shoes anyway?? I would be barefoot every second of the day if I could, and I think hats are unbelievably uncomfortable and look ridiculous on me.)

I also learned this weekend that it is sometimes worth a little water on the floor (and your pants) when it means you get to hear both of your kids laughing hysterically as they splash in the bathtub.

I learned that you can't force things. Like, you can't force yourself to stay awake, even if the movie is good, when you are flat-out exhausted. (OK, I learned that one a long time ago, actually.) You can't force kids to get along when they don't (but there is probably a "teachable moment" there somewhere). You can't force a team to win just by cheering for them (but you can at least be happy when it is Sid that scores the winning goal for the opposition.) Oh, and you can't force people to comment on your blog. :)

I learned that when you expose yourself, it feels liberating at times, but other times you just feel, well, in the words of a friend - naked. And in front of a crowd, that can be pretty darn uncomfortable. (Oh, I could go so many places with the pants on the ground reference here.)

I don't regret sharing this blog with the people that I have at this point. But I did learn something about myself in doing so. (There is that growing thing, I guess.) That is, while I have changed for the better greatly over the years, and though I have largely been able to ignore, and/or work around them for much of my adulthood, I still have a touch of the same insecurities that I have had for most of my life. Hmmmmm.

This weekend, I learned that introspection is a pretty awesome thing and that I still have quite a lot to learn... about the world, about being a mom, about being a wife, a communicator, a teacher, and especially about myself...but also that I am getting better at appreciating the moments, big bum, wrinkly eyes, soaking wet pants and all.

My Happy Place

Largely through my Facebook experiences, I have realized that sometimes I have something I really want to say, and sometimes I just want to connect. I want to hear what everyone else has to say.

I have every intention to make this blog my "happy place." The place that I can come for words of encouragement {even if they are only my own because no one comments..hahaha :-) }, to relive fond memories, and to get my thoughts out (but not complain...too much). I am pretty sure that this will evolve into all sorts of things if I let it go on long enough (or if it lets me?), but today I want to picture it as a place for me to grow.

I have several people in my life going through some really hard times. Unfortunately, we have all been there...unless you isolate yourself from the world, you will deal with the ups and downs that result from being in relationships with people - the hardest, of course, being death. Loving hard means grieving hard. (I am sure I am not the first to say that.) But would you give up the love to avoid the grief? Those who have experienced it would undoubtedly say, "no."

I don't want to dwell on the sad things, but I want my friends to know that I feel for them.

And with that, what I would love is for you to think back and tell me something that you smiled at today, something good that happened, even the smallest thing that you appreciated, something that you can add to this "happy place." If not for me, if not for you, then for those friends that we all know who are going through those hard times.

I will start...

Today, at dinner, Cortlan scooted his chair closer to mine and said, "Mommy, I am moving closer to you, because that is my favorite place to be."

To the other side of the building

Time is a really weird thing. Sometimes you just forget about it. You go to bed, wake up, eat breakfast, go about your daily routine...and then you look up and things are different.

Cortlan started preschool this morning. He has been at daycare ever since I went back to work when he was eight months old (barring summers and my second maternity leave), so you would think that this would be no big deal. I thought it would be no big deal. I mean, he is literally just moving to the other side of the relatively small building...he will be there the same hours, essentially do the same thing...but with three-year olds. And it was a big deal.

He has been "transitioning" this week. He has spent a few hours here and there in the preschool room, and yesterday he even took a nap there. But today was the first day that he started the day in that room.

Cortlan cried this morning. On the way to school. He never does that. "I don't wanna go to peeskole! I wanna be a ittle boy!" This from my big boy, who feeds our dog all by himself after dinner without even being asked, who holds his sister's hand in the car when she is sad, who insists that he can "do it by me-self!" any chance that he can, but who is also a little bit afraid that there are monsters in his closet (though doesn't want to admit it, as he assures me with a shaky confidence that "some monsers are nice...right?").

This morning was hard for me, too. I just wanted to cuddle him up. You know what? If you don't want to grow up, you don't have to. I will forsake my dreams of grandchildren (of which there are no guarantees anyway) to have you as my little boy forever. I will always want to hold you like this, and build block towers on the floor, and pretend to eat the delicious play-doh food you made me for dinner.

But alas, I had to be the grown up. We confidently and enthusiastically walked into that preschool room. And because I bribed him with a Blueberry Special K Breakfast bar, we had no more crying.

Oh, Cortlan. If you only knew how much I would just love to pause time right now.

But I went about my daily routine, went to bed, woke up, ate breakfast. And then I looked up and my ittle boy was a preschooler.


(My favorite video clip, taken about a year ago.)

A Feeling

You would think that after 11,964 days on this earth, I would be able to put words to just about every feeling I have. But yesterday, I had one that I just couldn't put my finger on. I didn't like it. I didn't like the feeling, and I didn't like that I couldn't understand what it was. I tried, in spurts and stutters, to explain it to my husband, to think it out loud to my reliable sounding board...most of the words just didn't work, didn't fit. It wasn't a good feeling, but none of the bad descriptors were doing it justice: not really sad, or jealous, or anxious, or lonely, or angry (no, definitely not angry)...

I think I don't like the feeling that I have nothing new to offer the world. Everything I have done, someone else has done before. Everything I write, someone has written. Every time I think I am doing something new...well, it isn't.

There it was. The best I could do to explain this uncomfortable yuckiness in my stomach that somehow radiated out to my fingers and even made my eyes water a bit for a brief moment. Not sure why I was feeling this way, but it really got me.

For hours before and after this conversation, I considered whether I should even bother writing this blog. I am not a writer (heck, I can't even come up with the right word to describe an emotion), and who cares what I have to say? Probably no one, was the answer I landed upon. Really, that train of thought may be what started the "feeling" in the first place. But then John reminded me and I thought again, who am I doing this for?

For me.
For my kids.

For my kids. My Kids.

Then, hours later, it hit me.

Maybe I don't have anything new to offer this world. But I offered this world my kids, and I can offer the world to my kids. Everything is new to them, and while my words may not affect many people in this world, I am the world to my children, especially right now, and every word I say to them affects them. And everything I have to offer is new in their world.

This is kind of hard to wrap my mind around, actually. And the "feeling" isn't entirely gone as I write this. But I realize that, at least for right now, I have to look at life on a different scale and realize my importance in it. I am a mother, and I am a teacher. (And I am more than that, too). I open eyes to the world. And, for now, that is what I have to offer, new or not.

Sucking on lollipops

It wasn't that long ago that a friend of mine wrote as her Facebook status, "Life sucks."

I really took pause at that statement, as I have said, thought, and/or wrote it myself more times than I can count. But that day, for some reason, I thought about it differently. I know my friend's life doesn't suck. And I am pretty sure she knows it, too. But every now and then we just need to say it, and then we need to be reminded that it isn't life that sucks, but rather, moments suck.

Trust me. I am not all sunshine and lollipops. I do my fair share of complaining and being irritated. For example: I hate packing lunches. Hate hate hate. It makes me miserable for those minutes of my evening. And some days, I despise cleaning the kitchen even more than I hate packing lunches. I have moments in my day and in my life that I would rather delete permanently, as we all do. But, (and it has taken me 32 years to get to the point that I can say this with confidence) though moments within it certainly may, life does not suck.

Thanks, friend, for reminding me of that.

Ordinarily Amazing

I have seen some other blogs recently and thought, Is this person for real!? I am not sure if those people's lives are as perfect, picturesque, and fairytale-like as the blogs make them seem to be, but let me tell you: You will not look at a picture of my daughter or me and envy our wardrobes. (If you do, it is probably because someone else bought the outfit.) You will not glimpse a peek at my house and think, "Holy Cow! What do they do for a living?" (We are just teachers, and if there is no mess in the background it is because I cleared it specifically for the picture.) You will not look at my photographs and think, "Wow! She should be a photographer!" (If a picture happens to be good, it was most likely by accident. Though, I am realizing that the odds of getting a really good picture do increase linearly with the cost of the camera. Right now I am using a $130 camera. I probably need a $1300 one before I stand a chance.)

I don't know anyone famous, or have a unbelievable social life. I am certainly not a supermom.

And though my friend who has spent weeks on end surfing in Costa Rica and has partied with Tommy Hilfiger and conversed with Uma Thurman will probably throw up a little in her mouth when she reads this, my life is pretty amazing.

It is pretty amazing because I have a very secure job that I love and am pretty good at, if I do say so myself. And it is pretty amazing because I have a great husband and two beautiful and healthy kids that I love to pieces.

Today is Saturday. I am not going out tonight, and that is ok. I spent the evening laughing because Cortlan calls it a "wick" when he has his underwear up his butt, clapping for Everly when she stood up for five whole seconds all by herself, dancing with my kids in the kitchen to Jack Johnson, trying to figure out why Cortlan called his pretend kite "pout on wine" (only to have it make perfect sense when the "dot com" was added), giggling with Everly as she signed "bath time" by rubbing her belly, and snuggling with my kids as I read them their bedtime stories.

So, yeah, it may not be extraordinary, but this is my life and I really do love it.

Out the door

Well, I got to try my new attitude on for size this morning already. Soundly asleep, enjoying a nice dream, I heard the baby begin to fuss and quickly escalate. Maybe she will just go back to sleep - it has got to be close to time to get up anyway. I glanced at the cell phone that doubles as my alarm - my pulse went into double time and the taste of panic went right up my throat to the tip of my tongue. Fifty minutes late!

Why be upset? There was nothing I could do to make me get up any earlier. We just had to deal with what we had - an hour and ten minutes to get to work, which meant get four people ready (two of which needed showers; one of which needed a bottle, diaper and clothes changed; and one of which can just barely brush his own teeth and get dressed and who somehow got pee all over the bathroom floor even though he was sitting on the potty), get lunches together (thankfully most of that was taken care of last night), get coats and shoes on, get into carseats and drive twenty minutes to daycare, take the kids in, get them situated, get back in the car, and drive to work. In an hour and ten minutes after we woke up. Including drive time.

I took the fastest shower of my life. I decided to wake the 3 year old up before I got ready (not the norm) so that he could kinda sorta get ready while I was. He loves being in the bathroom with me as I get ready anyway. My husband made the baby's bottle and started feeding her in the meantime. We were doing it.

What was on my mind was slightly different than normal...instead of panic, I maintained a calm. I thought about what I didn't want to happen. I didn't want my kids to suffer because I had my cell phone on "silence all." This was SO not their fault. In fact, for once I was so grateful to be woken up by the baby. So, I tried to allow them their time and their morning and to not be mad at them for not hurrying because, really, what is time to a 3 year old? an 11 month old? But, I moved them along as quickly as I could. With three of us dressed, they could play for a few minutes while I get everything together to get out the door and while John finished getting himself ready.

We pulled out of the driveway four minutes later than normal. Wow! And I never got upset - not even about the pee on the floor. (Maybe it was the, "Uh-oh, Mommy. I got a ittle pee on my unde-air. I'm sorwy." that helped diffuse that one.)

We put on a cd that we got in a Chick-Fil-A kids meal. We had never listened to it. When we got to the kids' school, we were in the middle of a great story. Two of the three wishes had been used for a sausage and (accidentally) that the sausage would be on the farmer's wife's nose. We were just about to find out what that third wish was going to be used for.

We got out of the car, and I asked, "What do you think that they are going to wish for?" The reply: "Maybe to get that sausage off her nose!! Sausages don't go on noses!"

Yep, sausages don't go on noses. Why wish for anything else?

Embarking...

Did you ever see something, read something, more like experience something, that gave you a sensation that you may have had a moment there that would be pivotal in your life? Something that made you want to be better? A better photographer, a better writer, a better mom, a better person...I am still not sure. Maybe just a better life-liver. Or life-appreciator. Or life-lover, even.

I had one of those moments not long ago. I have been sitting in that sensation, wondering about it, trying to figure out what it meant in my life. I still don't know. But the fact that I am still thinking about it weeks later makes me feel like I need to do something. Beginning this blog is my start.

Now, I do not think that I am going to change the world; I have no ambitions to do that. I don't even know if anyone but me will even read this. (At this point, I don't even know if I am going to share it with a single soul - on purpose, at least.) But maybe what will come of this, if nothing else, is something for me to look back on and appreciate as my kids grow, as life changes right before my eyes.

What is this blog about? I have no idea. It is about life, I suppose. My life. (?) About living and appreciating what I have. I am writing it because every night when my head hits the pillow, I remind myself how much I appreciate my family and what I have in life...but sometimes, in that same thought, I wonder why I didn't remind myself of that in the moment. So, I guess maybe I am doing this to help me keep focus in life - to appreciate the moment while I am in it, not when it is gone.

Maybe this will be just a place to record memories that I don't want to forget, funny things that my 3 year old said, benchmarks in my 11 month old's life. Maybe it will be a place to mention a good deal that I got. Maybe to just lay down some goals so they aren't just floating around in my head with nothing to anchor them to. Maybe it will turn into something else.

But, it will be me, and my life, and my thoughts, and somewhere to put them.

I don't know, as I begin this, how long and even if I will be able to sustain it. One of my biggest issues in life is not having time for everything. Having a full time job on top of being a full time mom and wife leaves me with little time left. So, this is one more time-consuming endeavor. One more thing to put on my to-do list, I suppose. But I am hoping that it will be worth it in the end.

So, maybe my life will change for the better today, because I am going to start to love even those moments in life that don't seem so lovable. Or at least I am going to try.