How do you do it all??

May 28, 2011 by ·

 … is a question I have been asked lately when conversation turns to the book coming out.And the real, honest, gut wrenching answer is:  I don’t.This post is simply just to keep it real.  As things have been coming to a head with the books and seminars, I have felt more and more like a chicken with my head cut off… running around in a zillion different directions, trying desperately to catch the (too) many things that I find slipping through my fingers (like missing 2 out of the 4 soccer sessions that we signed my 6 year old up for months ago, and I told myself after missing the first week that we HAD to get him to the 2nd week for sure… and then didn’t think about it again until the morning after the 2nd session…).

Or yesterday getting a call from 3 year olds preschool teacher… informing me that Joshy had bitten another child… and this was the third such phone call I had received from her within the past 2 weeks.  And then in trying to do a pow wow session on the phone of what we could do to stop this, she said she would send home some articles for me to read about ways to get over the biting… like giving more attention to the child…

… She said some other things too, but I didn’t get past that first part.
It hit me
and hit me hard.
In my rush to get these “outside” projects done,
I have been neglecting my “inside” projects.
My most important projects:
my own children.

 

I have been trying so hard to get these books done that, more often than I care to admit, I have been more of a ‘body’ in the home, making sure the children stayed alive throughout the day.  But (as humiliating as this is to admit), not really doing a whole lot more.  Except feeling guilty for it.

Oh yes, that’s one thing that I have excelled at through everything.
The guilt.
Guilt for not meeting a deadline on the book,
Or for not preparing enough for the seminars.
And then guilt for not sitting on the floor for 3 hours playing candyland with my kids.
Or for not taking them on nature walks to pick variations of wild flowers and then come back, press and preserve the flowers for their own personal scrapbooks.
Yep, Guilt is one thing I can do.

So, no, I don’t do it all.

… And I don’t think anyone can.
In our quest to be the perfect mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter, homemaker, book writer, stick figure drawer, etc etc etc (the list could be endless!)…

We can’t do it all.

And shouldn’t do it all.

I think the trick is finding what we can do

And letting go of the rest.

So, perhaps the question we should be asking each other is:
How do you not do it all?
In other words… how do you prioritize and pick what you will do?
Or more importantly, how do you pick and choose what you will let go…
without holding on to the guilt of letting it go??

Just keeping it real 🙂

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, Featured Posts, Motherhood Tagged With: ,

so many hats… so little time…

May 28, 2011 by ·

I have found myself so caught up in all of the royalty hoopla this weekend… no I didn’t get up at 4:00 to watch the live ceremony… (I knew they would rebroadcast about 1000 times so I wasn’t too worried),

But we did wait anxiously for the “royal kiss” and watched the recap on the morning news show… complete with all of the clips featuring the regal dresses and matching hats (who knew there were so many different hat designs in the world??!  and truly, some of those hats just weren’t meant to be worn – let’s just be honest!).Now, I’m normally not a hat person, but I do my fare share of hat switching throughout any given day.  Take today, for example:

— Wake up in wee hours of morning with horrible stomach issues.
Put on Dr. Hat (since Dr. Hubby is out of town, I couldn’t just turn and ask him what was up) to diagnose the issue:
pregnancy?  Nope.
flu?  Not likely
anyway related to the junky substitute for food that I have been shoveling into my mouth for the past waaaay too many days?  Highly probable.

Which meant I probably just had to wait it out.
On goes patient hat.

Kids come into room in the (still too early) morning, asking if they can watch tv (knowing full well the chore schedule that is awaiting them)
Put on task master hat and mumble something about chores, violin, reading… don’t really finish sentence as I drift back to sleep.
Wake up a bit later to sound of not one, but 2 TV’s playing
Put on warden had and hand out “go directly to jail” cards.

Quickly change into chef hat and direct my little Sioux chefs to get out cereal and milk, and hurry because we needed to be walking out the door in 10 minutes.
Realize we are out of milk.
Change into Kentucky derby hat – race to corner gas station, load up on milk.  (and donuts).

Put on exercise clothes and change into zumba hat.

Load all 5 kiddos in car (shoes optional…) speed to gym just in time to get kids into kids care and run up stairs to help with 3 hour zumbathon to raise money for YMCA in Japan (adjusting philanthropist hat on the way)

Do my little section… quickly changing my whole outline right in the middle due to mic malfunctions
(enter chameleon hat)

Finish my tidbit, change from sexy latin dance hat to mommy hat once again, race to kids care to gather up kids and zoom son to soccer game.

Stopping along the way to break out Mechanic hat as overheating car started dinging warning bells louder and louder warning me to pull off road before engine exploded.

Get to Soccer game, shove shivering son out the door and put on momma bear hat as I launch a tirade of text messages about why wasn’t the game canceled in light of the the freezing rain/high wind/mud pit of a field.

Kept all other kids inside car to watch from our warm perch
and don umpire hat to referee all of the fights that broke out between the kids who were cooped up in way to close of quarters for way too long.

Finally see the game end, and quickly get things loaded to zoom back to zumbathon… only to discover that the car is completely dead.  Not just a little dead.  Won’t even make a sound.

Put on mechanics hat once again and quickly diagnose as child error (i.e. yelled at the kids, who were climbing up on the dash board that they surely hit something that drained the battery in all of their craziness during the game).

Call AAA (LOVE that company!).  Wait for road side assistance (ignoring the glares from other cars, as I wasn’t parked ‘exactly legally’ to begin with, and now had no way of moving the car anyway).

Put on choir director’s hat to cue heavenly angels chorus as road side assistance drove up…
… and quickly pointed out that the lights had been left on the whole game… by (ahem) me.

Jumped battery, told me to keep car running for a while… which was a little problem (see previous overheating issue).

Slapped on deductive reasoning hat to contemplate options:
1.  let car run with no coolant to charge battery… leading to overheating and possibly blowing up engine.
2.  go to store, shut off car to get coolant, have battery die again while in store and become stranded once more with kids.

… finally made it home, found coolant, poured in car, turned back on, let it run.

Put on night hat and literally crashed on the couch for a good hour.  Hopefully the kiddos found something to eat, but not sure.

Woke up even more drained then before, walked like a zombie trying to get my bearings as the neighborhood seemed to have converged on our backyard.

Now contemplating putting on hypocrite hat to load up the kids and declare tonight a Micky-D night (not even 24 hours after updating a ‘how to feed your kids healthy’ type of handout for the website).  Nice.

What hats have you been wearing??

Filed Under: Motherhood, Random Tagged With: ,

I stand all amazed

May 28, 2011 by ·

at the job of single moms.

Because, let’s face it,
kids don’t ‘get’ Mother’s Day,
Anymore than they ‘get’ ‘mommy is sick’ days.
When it comes right down to it,
the (adequate) celebration of Mothers Day (read:  dinners magically prepared, dishes washed and put away, poopy diapers changed all day long),
It falls squarely on the shoulders of dad.
And today, as I was laying in bed
listening to the sounds of spring outside my window
that harmonized perfectly with the clinking and clanking in the kitchen
As my hubby directed the breakfast-making kids,
I was suddenly hit by the fact that there are (way too many) homes
where there is a dom…
a mom…
who also plays dad…
and carries the stress load of twice the legal limit
and somehow still puts a smile on her face as she greets her sweet kiddos
and gets up on Mother’s Day to cook her own meals.
And forges through the day in and day out of caring for her most treasured possessions.
and waits until they are all softly asleep
before letting her tears fall
and her fears show.
And then gets up the next day
to go through it all again.
Knowing that her pain and her stress and her struggles
Will someday work out.
And these children she is rearing
Will rise up and thank her
For going through the trenches
to feed them, and clothe them, and most importantly
to love them and teach them.
And do it singlehandedly, the absolute best that she knows how.
And relies on God to give her the strength to do it when she doesn’t know how.
She is a true hero to me, wherever she is.
My mother in law is one such amazing woman.
She raised my husband.
And his brother
and his sister.
Alone.
And did an amazingly wonderful job.
Thank you, Sue.
For raising my husband, best friend, and father of my children.
Thank you for bringing him into the world.
And raising him in your world.
So that he could become my world.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, Random Tagged With: