Things to do... when you don't have the time!

My mornings are always rushed and hectic,which I know you can all relate to. So as I sit here blogging while putting on lipstick and running back and fourth to the kitchen to make breakfast for my guys (I should have been fully dressed a half hour ago), I remind myself of something. Don't forget to breathe deeply, don't forget your lip gloss and travel size hand lotion (running late is no excuse for dry and ashy parts) , and most important don't forget to say thank you. I choose to say thank you to God for all of my blessings. Starting off my day with gratitude instead of attitude helps me make a much needed adjustment before I let stress get the best of me.There is always something to be thankful for. So here's the deal... if you're reading this now and it's almost 8 AM, you're probably late.Go on, get outta here! Hurry! But don't forget to say thank you first.

The CYCLE of life!

It's really something how certain things in our daily routine can unify people from all walks of life. I've just dropped off my six year old son at school and I hear a mom pleading with her boy, "Please be good today. Listen on the first time. Keep your hands to yourself. Finish your work. Please. Pleeeze!" It's the same exact conversation I had with my son only moments ago! And her son is giving her the same exact visual response my son gave me! Not a full roll of the eyes because he knows that won't be tolerated, but it's a half roll with a side stare off into the distance. I whip my head around to see who it is because it feels like we all have the same kid, we just didn't realize it. I hear a husband and wife in the grocery store debating whether or not it matters what kind of toilet tissue they get and why do women use sooo much of it anyway? I have to back up and check to see if the wife is talking to Billy because we just had this talk! It is the same thing with our Dance With Me classes. Women come up to me after and share their stories or ask my advice about things. It never ceases to amaze me how alike all of us are. Most women grow to learn that if they are around a certain group of other women all the time, eventually their menstrual cycles will be in sync. If that's not a great example of God's sense of humor, I don't know what is.Woe be unto the men who get on the wrong side of that! So I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that many of our mommy students were going through the same issues at the same time.We all hug each other a lot and that's how the pheromones get moshed together in the first place. A couple of weeks ago there was a cloud of doom over every class we had one day. It was one story coming out of the mouths of several different women. The guilt involved with wanting to be a good wife or mother or both depending on the individual situation. It was tearing some of our students apart.You don't worry about putting yourself last on the list because you're not on the list at all! You love your family so much and yet you feel over stretched and under appreciated. Somebody say AMEN!  You can't get ahead. You're overwhelmed. You want to be successful at everything but you feel like you're failing miserably. And worst of all, sometimes you're not as patient with your kids as you want to be. Sometimes when you're trying to think for just a second and your children are calling MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY non- stop... you have the audacity to let it get to you.You feel like you're going to snap! There's the guilt. Your husband keeps missing the trashcan and so a pile of trash  (unnoticed by everyone... but you) has accumulated right beside it. You are maniacally amused by this.You're also tired. And don't get sick! There's no sick leave for you! Your arm is falling off? Tape it up and get back to work! The house won't clean itself ya know. What? You're not a stay at home mom? Shame on you. Shame. How selfish. No wonder things at home are crazy. You only care about your own needs. Does any of this sound familiar in any way? Think I can't relate? Ohhhh but I do. I relate to all of it. I consider myself to be both a working mom and a stay at home mom. I know that sinking feeling when you're trying to be on top of everything and instead you're plummeting toward the bottom. It finally dawned on me that we beat ourselves up because we are good wives and mothers. We do care! Very much! We are trying our best to do something that even on the greatest day will never be perfect! Forget about perfect. What we need to remember is, there is a difference between being selfish ( which some people truly are) and taking care of yourself first so that you can be strong and whole enough to be the very best you! Which ends up being better for everyone around you. An exasperated, resentful, mommy is not what we set out to be. But on certain days when we feel ourselves going down that road it's usually because we've answered everyone's call but our own. We know the best life is a well balanced one so tending to all things but you may seem like the right motherly plan at first, but it has to implode at some point. It is necessary to get a handle on this concept because you are setting an example for your children. You are teaching them how to treat themselves and how they should expect to be treated. You have to stop feeling guilty about needing time to regroup. You have, after all, the hardest job on the planet! Billy and I feel our marriage should come first so that we set a good example for our son. So that he sees his mom and dad love each other and him as well, not just two parents that only deal with each other through the child. There's a difference. Michelle Pfeiffer has this great line in the movie The Story of Us where she says that marriage is a dance perfected over time. I say you better get a great pair of dancing shoes because life is never going to be perfect. That's not the point of it. It's about the dance itself. Now I  could definitely be accused of being partial to dance metaphors, but what I'm really trying to say is... GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK !!! And give yourself credit for being able to keep all the balls in the air at one time. Life is already a roller coaster, and our hormones are on their own up and down ride. It's like sitting Disneyland's Matterhorn on the lap of Magic Mountain's Colossus. Wow. I'm pretty sure I just overdid the metaphor thing. Yeah. So, here's the deal... the next time you start to feel like you're falling into the abyss, remember a few things; You're definitely not alone, you should give yourself some extra TLC, and most of all take time to laugh at the fact that if your touchy- feely behind weren't so overly huggy,  friendly and wonderful , there wouldn't be so many of us wearing your pheromones and going through the same thing!

So Absorbent!

If you are the parents of very young children, some part of your day probably consists of mentally drowning out the jingle of an insanely popular kid's TV show that evidently has more purchased airtime than CNN. Yes.You're going about your adult duties like the grown up grown person you are, not stopping for any reason except for the millisecond it takes you unconsciously mouth the answer to the questions posed by that jingle. 'Yat dat da da da da yat dat da da?' "Sponge-Bob-Square-Pants!" 'Yat dat da da da da yat dat da da?' "Sponge-Bob-Square-Pants!" It's like breathing. You don't notice. You mouth the answer in rhythm and you even do the whistle at the end but you don't notice that either. What you do notice (and at times rely on) is that no matter what time you turn on the TV, the maniacal laughter of that eternally optimistic cleaning pad will be there to greet you. It's the under age version of the movie Groundhog's Day. At some point will also spend time wrestling DVDs of  The Sponge (you know you own 'em) out of your child's hands, explaining to him/her that they should read a book, clean their room, play outside, color, anything other than watching the Krabby Patty flipping fry cook again. After all, Billy and I are a hard working couple trying to set the best example we can for our son and we're not going to let some mindless TV get in the way of that.We want him to learn to seek joy in every situation. Find the good in people. Take pride in his work. Be a loyal friend. We want him to learn never to lie, cheat, or steal anything no matter how small. It's like that time Squidward wanted to go on strike against Mr. Krabs because Krabs is so greedy and SpongeBob didn't know what striking was because he truly loves his job so much but he was being a loyal friend to Squiddy and happily went along with it thinking that it was a fun thing and... uh... well what we are trying to teach our son is that he has a purpose in life and he doesn't have to be a celebrity to have self worth. Like the time SpongeBob ripped his pants by accident and then because of the reaction by his friend Sandy the squirrel and the rest of the inhabitants of Bikini Bottom he thought he needed to keep ripping them in order to be funny and popular but then he learned that he was special just as he was because... well... I know it seems like... but it was actually a great lesson for... it was a pretty good episode. Okay, I can't be the only person who has noticed over time that aside from having a laugh that makes you want to bang your head against a brick wall to make it stop, the Bobster isn't such a bad little guy... sponge. He lives in a pineapple under the sea without one bit of concern for whether or not his pineapple will be featured on MTVs Cribs, he is honest, genuinely joyful, encouraging to everyone (even when people... uh fish are openly mean to him), he's hard working, helpful, and yes, funny as H-E-double hockey sticks! So here's the deal... even though sometimes it may seem like you are fighting a losing battle with everything your kids are being exposed to, remember you are the parent. You're in control. TV, like anything else can be used as a learning tool and you have the power to use it a little or not at all. Not to worry. You are your child's first and most important teacher, and they are soaking you up like a... well you know.