My Toughest Critic

Over the past 2 months I have been on a journey.  I journey to rediscover “me”.  If you are a parent you know the drill…. putting everyone and everything before yourself.  I too fell into that mindset.  I became a provider for all but nothing to myself.  I found myself angry more than not; however I could never pin point why I was angry.  I just felt the rage.  Then one morning I looked in the mirror….like actually LOOKED in the mirror.  Not just the quick glance we usually give ourselves to make sure we don’t have snot or toothpaste on our face.  I looked and I was surprised what I saw…as I truly did not see me.  I saw a tired sad person.  I saw a body but couldn’t see past that.  I was obese.  This is the only thing I could see.

Now don’t get me wrong, I knew I was overweight before this moment.  My family would find nice ways to hint at the thought. My doctor always would allude to the fact that I could shed a few…or more.  It would improve my blood pressure.  I would have more energy.  I would feel better.  I knew all these things however really lacked the will to do anything about it.    Until 2 months ago.

Often times we are our toughest critics.  We can be really hard on ourselves.  Nitpicky on everything we don’t like about body, hair, my eyes are too close together (really they are) or just plain old self.  However, I didn’t fall into this.  I was more extreme.  I simply was of the denial mentality.  I don’t know what else to really call it.  I “knew” all the things I needed to do…just lacked the focus or desire to get it done.

What happened 2 months ago?  What made me actually “see” what I needed to see?

The turning point for me was my son. 

My oldest son has a heart of gold and often over thinks everything…and I mean everything.  On top of that, he is very honest.  He can’t even lie to make you feel good.  If he doesn’t like something, you will know.  I was sitting on the couch and reached over to hold his hand.  This is a delicate move as this is the time we balance if it is cool to cuddle with Mom.  He looked at my hand and then up to me and proceeded to tell me that I needed to put some polish on my nails because my hands look better than way.  Recently I posted about DaddyCool helping me dye my hair.  Once morning hit, my son came down to see me and the first thing he said was “I don’t like that color on you”.  I asked him what color would he like…fully expecting an “I don’t know answer”.  However he walked close to me and pulled a section of hair from underneath and said…”This color with some red in it”.  Yes, he is only 7.  He knows what he likes and wants.  I admire that in him. 

This little gem of mine is the source of my “ah ha” moment.  At one of our bedtime talks he asked me why I didn’t play sports anymore.  I answered with that I am not in shape to play those things right now.  He looked at me and said, so change that.  At first I wanted to explain to him that it just wasn’t that easy.  It was much more complex than that….but I stopped.  I stopped because truth is…he was right.  The only thing holding me back was me.  I told him that I would work on better choices and be fit for the next basketball season.  He smiled and said…I know you will do it because you always do what you tell us you will. (can someone pull out the knife?)

That is when I realized that I am good to my word for everything I do, except for when it comes to things for ME.  Just as they deserve happiness and a healthy life, I do too.  I NEED this so that I can be there to provide for them.  What good am I on the couch too large to move or be a part of anything they are doing? 

Two months into this journey and I have lost 25 pounds.

Each day is easier to be me.

Each day is more joyous than the next.

I still have a long road ahead of me, but I know it is going to be an awesome journey.  My toughest critic will be with me every step of the way.  The best part is I know he is honest and has my best interest in mind.  He has a heart of gold and a mind of many men.  I love that he is my son.

Not Me! Absolutely Not!

As a parent there are certain things you just never do.  Like ever!  So to make sure we are all in this together I will share some of the things I did not do this past week.  Hope you will enjoy and let me know what you did not do this week too.

No way, absolutely not, I would have never:

Told my son to pull jeans from the laundry pile, they don't look dirty.  You will be fine.

Said to get those old to get those dirty balls out of your mouth….to my son

Asked my children to stop screaming so I can hear myself scream.

Washed my hands and then poured more soap on my hands in an effort to grab a paper towel

Attempted to put the milk away in the cupboard

Forgot about my cold brew iced tea I was making for over 30 mins (it only takes 3mins) Oh and this was not the first time either!

And I most defiantly did not laugh at my poor husband in pain.  It was most certainly not funny when he would get a slight strong pain in his neck and it would cause him to twitch.  I was not laughing at him, nope not me!

More importantly, 

I did not write my daughter's birthday wrong on the forms I sent to school.  Nope not me.  I mean my mom would have NEVER had to call me at work to let me know that I forgot my own daughter's birthday, I mean I was there for it!  Nope not me!

I did not fall asleep at 6:45pm on a Saturday night.  I would never do that, that is way too lazy.

I did not let my daughter sleep in her clothes because she "loves her dress so much" and wanted to sleep in it too.

I do not shake the coffee creamer with the lid open spraying creamer all over the kitchen floor and myself.  I would never be too tired to do something like that.

I would never admit that my lil son said "damn it" clear as day.  There is no way my child would have heard that from me, nope never.

I did not allow my children to yell in the parking structure at the hotel because they realized it echoed.

I did not tell my 4 year old that I have special powers to know when he is lying.

I did not feed my children junior mints at 7:30 in the morning to keep them quiet.

I would not to these things as I am far more organized and put together than this.  Ok, so maybe, just maybe I lied about having super powers...but the jury is still out on that one.

Friendship - My Guest Post Reblogged

This is the post I was so thankful to have the opportunity to write for a dear friend's blog.  I thought I would post it here in case you missed it!  She is a real friend and we are more than bloggers harassing one another.  We harass each other in real life.  We also support each other.  We cry, we scream, we are there for each other because that is what we do.  Even if she talks about spandex more than any human should and wishes for unicorn farts….  It was only fitting that I write about Friendship.

 

A few nights ago, I was talking to a dear friend of mine.  We have known each other for more years than I care to say for fear of feeling old.  We met in 9^th grade. I still remember the party and all the stupid people there….good ones too.  That is where we connected the first time.  We were not “close” in high school.  We had similar friends but different schedules.  I hung out with a mix of people and played basketball.  She had some similar friends but was not in my “sports” world.  As high school ended, so did our connection until one awesome day when we reunited on Facebook.  I say Facebook sucks a lot, but I truly am thankful more than not as I have been reunited with my dear friend.  Reunited at a time in which I needed someone the most.  My marriage was rocky; I felt as though I was not cut out for this parenting gig…but was two kids into it.  I was dealing with a lot of strong issues just in time to find out I was pregnant with #3.  I about lost it….but she didn’t judge, she was there.  Anytime I needed her, she was there.  Good thing she didn’t charge…I would be broke.

I found myself thinking of the other significant friendships that I have had throughout my life.  Just yesterday I ran into a woman that I have known since I was 3.  Yes, 3!  We have known each other almost all our life yet since high school we never connect other than by chance.  The funny thing is, when we see each other it is if we have been hanging out all the time.  There is just a connection.  I can’t explain it.  We can go from being incredibly estranged to close and connected in minutes.

That is my life pattern though.  The people I have known for years come and go often only reconnected because of social media.  I wonder if “I” am the reason I don’t have any friends that stick it out.  My husband and his BFF are in contact daily.  They were in each other’s weddings.  They have a bond.  Yet for me, the friendship fades, or changes or…. do I?

Until recently I really never thought about it.  Maybe it is me getting older and all soft.  The hard truth is that when friendships are lost it is often viewed as a personal failure, sometimes it is even embarrassing to some.  This is where I believe we begin to judge ourselves too hard on our ability to make and maintain friends.  I found this quote and it put things into a new light for me:

"Each friend represents a world in us,
a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting
that a new world is born."
~ Anais Nin

I look at all the people I have come across regardless of the amount of time I had them in my life and I can see what they brought to me.  Some brought great memories and others brought great sadness, but both brought opportunities to learn more about me.  Each and every person I have crossed paths with and have been able to call a “friend”, even for a short time has molded me to who I am today.  I sincerely hope I have done the same for them. 

This is the essential key. 

 

It is about me.  It is about me being ok with me.  We all connect for various reasons.  Embrace the time spent and grow with it. Don’t take it personally, just take what you have learned from your interactions.

“If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.” -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Friendships will come and go.  Life leads people in a new direction at times.  The reality is sometimes we just outgrow our friends.  It doesn’t have to be because of something we did or they did.  It may simply be because we are needed elsewhere and so are they.  

Don’t forget the friends you keep around for pure entertainment value.  You all have one and know what I am talking about.  That is a whole other topic for another time.

Guest Post - Gender Bending in The DeBie Hive

I am so giddy about this guest post.  I am not sure if it trumps DaddyCool writing as I never thought that would occur, BUT it is a super duper close 2nd.  A very close friend who is a real life friend...not just a read on the computer friend has agreed to write a guest post.   

She has been with me through great and horrible.  She was there with when I was miserable and pregnant....because she rocks as a doula.  She was there when my kids were sick and I needed a reality check.  She is there to laugh with and we do that a lot.  She does all that and runs a hive of 4 kids.  Who has time for all that and four kids?  My badass friend Kelly from DeBie Hive.  She is the Queen over there if you haven't met her, here is an intro from her page...

I'm a California girl living a Colorado life. I'm a doula, a photographer and a writer. I have four kids....and, trust me, that explains a lot.

 

When The Mommy Ref asked me to do a guest post for her blog, I was thrilled. 

You see, I may or may not have encouraged her to get into this whole crazy blogging thing as direct punishment for the fact that she's always asking my advice about parenting.

She can blame me.

I have kids that are older than hers, I have both boys and girls, and our children have more similarities than differences when it comes to personality issues.  Most of the time when she shares her frustration about whatever is going on, I can tell her that I've been in that place, almost exactly. 

I like to believe that I've talked her away from the mommy ledge a few times, and I know that I can tell her about all the stuff going on in my life without worrying about it ever going further than that.

We aren't just fellow bloggers, we're friends.  True friends.  The kind who know way too much about each other. 

So, when she asked me to do this, I said yes immediately. 

We tried to come up with a topic that would go along with her blog theme, and that was something I haven't really written about before, so here goes.

Gender Bending in The DeBie Hive

Sometime in this past week, The Mommy Ref mentioned something to me about a parent in her daughter's dance class commenting on how she put her daughter in dance because she didn't want her playing sports.  It stuck with me, even though I wasn't even there when it was said.

It stuck with me because we have always encouraged our kids to try activities that they are interested in, with no regard to whether something is a "boy" activity or a "girl" activity.  We just don't deal with gender boundaries here at all, we push them.  Test the limits.  Challenge what people expect.  Allow our kids to be who they already are without question or judgment.

When I was pregnant with our second, we bought our oldest, a boy, a baby doll.  He loved that doll and carried it everywhere.  He has lots of big brother miles on him these days, and has always been loving and understanding around babies.  I think he gets almost as excited as I do around newborns.

That boy, the oldest, is not my athlete.  He played soccer for a few seasons, but didn't love it.  He played baseball for a few years too.  Through just the luck of the draw, he needed surgery two years in a row.  His baseball career ended. 

Since then, he's tried swimming and basketball.  We just signed him up for wrestling.  He hasn't found a single sport that he loves, and that's okay.  He loves to play, he loves to try new things, and he doesn't care if he is good or not.  He's a fan of sports, he loves to learn the intricate rules of them all.  He just is a better spectator than player.  And that is okay.

What he is great at?  Art.  Music.  Anything creative. 

He loves to make, to envision, to build.  He wants to get more active in the drama club at school, and I could easily see him doing musical theater by high school.  I'm sure he'll be designing the sets too.  The kid has a wicked pair of jazz hands and can kick anyone's ass on Just Dance. 

He invented a cartoon character named Pinki.  As you can probably guess, Pinki is pink.

Does that make him less "boyish"? 

Hell no.  I happen to think it makes him awesome.

My eldest daughter, the opposite.  She's a tomboy, has been since birth...but she's a fabulous tomboy.  She's always been my jock, she's always had the highest energy level, she's always cared the least about what the other little girls were doing. 

She'd rather kick the ball around than go shopping any day.  She's the reason we have rules about playing soccer in the house.  She's the one who got a USWNT jersey for Christmas and squealed as much as her younger sister did when she got a box of makeup. 

She plays hard, she takes on the boys, she throws elbows.  She broke her foot in a soccer game against the boys last year, and was back out on the grass with her ball as soon as the cast was dry.  She broke one of her casts completely.  She never stops moving. 

She's played soccer since she was three, she's done figure skating and tennis and swimming and basketball.  She desperately wants to play volleyball, but the seasons overlap with soccer.  Oh, and that soccer thing?  She's been on a traveling team for two years. We all eat, sleep and breathe soccer around here.  I knew she loved it when she took a ball to the face in the box and stopped it.  I'd love nothing more than for her to find the confidence to get back in at keeper.



She's also my matchy-matchy girl.  She insists on careful wardrobe selection.  She adores headbands with giant flowers and bows.  She loves sparkly things, but she won't hesitate to drop it all and lace up her cleats if someone wants to play.

We've said for years that she has boy legs.  Covered in scars and bruises and bumps and blisters, they are the evidence of how hard she plays.  She asked for, and got a skateboard for Christmas. Does that make her less "girly"?  

Hell no.  I happen to think it makes her awesome.

My other daughter, the younger one, probably falls more within the boundaries of a typical girl most of the time, at least to the casual observer.  She loves music, loves fashion (though she refuses anything that matches), she is already boy crazy.  What she also is, though, is tough.  She plays almost entirely with boys, she can't stand girl drama already, and she could wrestle her brother to the ground by the time she was 18 months old.  She hates to color and loves to fight.

She can do anything he can do, better.  She plays soccer like her big sis.

She stands up for what she believes in, won't let anyone push her around, and already got sent to the office for punching a male bully in the face.  She's her mama's girl, and she's pretty badass.  She might look girly from the outside, but she's feisty.

Does her unwillingness to put up with the crap people throw at her make her less "girly"?

Hell no.  I happen to think it makes her awesome.

My youngest son could ride a bike by two, scored more goals on his soccer team than the rest of the kids combined, drop kicked the soccer ball into the tree during Christmas and can throw a spiral with a full size football already.  He got baseball gear for Christmas and has been asking five times a day when we're signing him up.

As I write this, he's also painting his toenails.  Again.  I'm pretty sure his toes have about six coats of nail polish on them.  He fairly frequently is dressed up like a princess, cha cha shoes and everything. 
He loves to sing and dance and has an unnatural affection for Lady Gaga.

Does that make him less "boyish"? 

Hell no, and anyone who would ever claim that can take it up with his mother.  I hear she's pretty badass.

Getting 2 Know The Mommy Ref

A wonderful Mama nominated for my second Leibster Award.  She is so awesome to me I couldn’t ignore the awesome nomination.  Although since I have already received this award I am going to take this time to use her posed questions as a get to know The Mommy Ref a bit better opportunity.  I sure hope that is alright with you players.  Bending the rules and getting crazy here!

Here are the questions and my answers

Have you ever moved away from "home"?

Yes, I grew up in CA.  When I was a young lass I had a nasty break up and moved to Oregon to finish school.  At the time I felt it was right to get a fresh start, but I sound realized it was more of a break from the drama.  I moved back after graduating 2 years later.  I am currently back in California.

What are your hobbies, besides blogging?

Are kids a hobby?  How about a hubby?  Is cleaning a hobby?  We enjoy camping as a family and try to go often.  Being in California there is always something going on.  I enjoy playing and coaching sports.  I have coached basketball for several years now and get pleasure out of seeing kids find love for the game.

Do you go on family vacations; which was your favorite?

We have stayed pretty local since the kids have been born.  More for cost than anything else.  Our favorite times are out in nature camping.  The kids are able to be more “free” and we get to relax a bit too!

Any big plans for 2013?

Not sure if it is a big plan but DaddyCool and I have made a decision to use more small businesses in 2013.  Give work to those that need and want it.  Give back to those that work hard to provide in a state as tough as California.

If you could have any animal, real or imaginary, for a pet, what would you choose and why?

I would get a unicorn and gift it to Kelly at The Debie Hive.  Because she would totally rock that with her Wonder Woman Cape and boots!  I am not making this up, she would.  Plus I would go crazy with something else to take care of.  I kill plants!

What's your favorite book/movie?

The Neverending Story….Loved that I could be lost in a Story


It's raining and the kids are home from school, WHAT DO YOU DO?

Movies, popcorn and snuggles.  Crack the window open and listen to the rain.  We also like to make pizzas too.  Just spend time.


If you could time-travel, would you go back to the past or into the future?

I would go into the past so I could spend more time with loved ones that were taken too early from me


Do you censor your posts based on your followers (like family or certain friends)?

I don’t write about certain things because I am not sure I can put it on paper well, but it is not for fear of “who” is reading it.  I have an anonymous blog but I am not naïve that my cover could be blown at any time.  Also, this blog was set up as a reflection of me.  I won’t write something to simply create traffic.  It is real stuff on my mind.


Will you keep blogging?

I hope to.  I only write about once a week because I don’t want to take a lot of time from my family and myself.  This year I am making better choices to get me healthy.  You will see more one liners on Twitter or Facebook than deep thought out blog posts for now.  I hope that chances as my confidence in writing builds.


You get to meet a role model or idol: who is it and why?

I would like to be in a room with other successful business women that were Moms.  I would like hear their struggles and triumphs growing to the positions they are in now.

  Hope that gives you a little more about me.  If there is anything else you have been wondering about me, let me know!                         

Game Over.