I must be doing SOMETHING right ;)

So many days I feel like I am royally screwing up and not doing a great job parenting. I usually feel overwhelmed and at my breaking point. I usually feel spread too thin, as a lot of parents do.  There are some days though, that are particularly tough because I am in need of a break…which is long overdue for me at this point.  When my house is a disaster, I feel especially overwhelmed and irritable…which leads me to feel I am not doing a good job.  Today is has been one of those days but also has been a day where I have been able to see some growth in maturity and goodness in my children and it is so heartwarming.  They aren’t perfect and they have moments where they aren’t themselves, like we all do and they have areas where there is room for improvements, again, like we all do but I love and accept them the way they are. Accepting your children for who they are, without trying to make them someone else, by the way, is a huge weight off your shoulders.  Believing that they are awesome people the way they are,  just with areas that they may need guidance, does a world of good for them and you as a parent 🙂

I digress……back to my point of the post 🙂 Today, I have been irritable and overwhelmed by the filth of my house and the feeling of taking one step forward in cleanliness only to take 3 steps back because of some mess or disaster my 4 younger children have been involved in.  It gets to me after a while. Sometimes they are cleaning up after themselves and sometimes not. Plus there has been quite a bit of bickering between them and I only have myself to blame for this part since I let them have a sleep over downstairs for 2 nights in a row….knowing they don’t sleep well and are irritable after night 2.  Anyway, today after Kaitlyn was frustrated with her brother for not putting forth the effort to help clean their room, she started yelling and making demands and one thing led to another and before you know it there are tears and refusals to help. Then Kaitlyn is mad at me because I suggested she calmed down before she expected Aaron to help…she wanted him to help “right now”.  I suggested taking deep breaths and counting to 10 and she really did try but it just didn’t seem to do the trick for her because she would get mad again.  She ended up yelling at me about it and then actually hit me as I was turned around. It took me by surprise honestly and to be REALLY honest, I became a bit tearful out of frustration.  I then noticed she went and hid behind the couch and I could hear her counting and breathing again. She started talking to our puppy ( who was supposed to be napping lol). She came out a few minutes later and was very apologetic and suggested that she color a picture to calm herself down more, as well as to color one for me to help me feel better and one for her little brother too. Now that is an awesome thing to see from your kid! Recognizing that she was losing it and going off on her own to calm down, and coming back apologetic and more calm……..makes a mom proud 🙂

Then, a few minutes later, Ethan came down with a gift for “yours truly” 🙂 He had made me a coupon book! Bonus…..they never expire! How sweet is he? He said “Mom, I made this for you because it looked like you are having a tough day 😀 “.  Definitely something else to make this mom feel proud. It’s not the first time he has been so thoughtful …..he’s done these things before, they all do from time to time, but it is moments like these that help me keep going and pushing on through my day.

I am not naive enough to think this day won’t continue to have it’s ups and downs but at least I have had these moments to point out to me that no matter how often I feel like I am not getting it right……I must be doing something right 🙂 Tomorrow, I will be cashing in on one of those coupons!

Baby Girl….a story about life’s bittersweet difficulties and surprises.

This is our precious baby girl. She is a funny little thing 🙂 She likes black coffee, blue cheese, pepper jack cheese, jalapeno chips, hot sauce too hot for me to stand, beer, and lemons. We always joke that if her daddy likes it, she will. He likes strong and peculiar flavored foods and so does she. She actually prefers to sip the black coffee from her daddy’s mug instead of my cream and sugar with a little coffee.  She loves Doc Mcstuffins and Daniel Tiger and sings the tunes to the cartoons while she plays and walks around the house.  She thinks anything that is pink in the house is hers. Doesn’t matter if it is a pink bow or a pink pen lid….it’s her “pink”.  She wants to sleep with her kitty cat back pack on but settles reluctantly for us setting it beside her crib so she can have it back in the morning when she wakes up. She loves our pets just as any 2 yr old does and loves to give them her sweet baby kisses. She is so funny when the puppy chews on something she thinks that she shouldn’t.  The puppy could have a piece of paper and baby girl squeals, “Oh no! Oh no! Bella chew!” and she won’t stop until we get it from her.  She is everyone’s baby girl because we all love her and dote over her…right down to Max, her 3 yr old brother. She is super loved and it is wonderful 🙂

She is the baby of the family and will remain that way and she was also our biggest “surprise”.  She was meant to be but the only one who wasn’t really planned or expected.  Let me explain a bit here. When my husband and I got married, we knew we wanted a large family. We joked about having 6 kids but then we were young and naive as to how much it took to raise a large family. After all, we were just over 20 yrs old. After a couple of years of marriage, we had our first baby. He was planned. We were so in love with him, it was hard for us to imagine another child as much as we did him! We still knew we wanted more children though and hoped our hearts would grow with love for another. Just before he turned 2, we found out we were pregnant with our 2nd baby. We were ecstatic as we had been planning on her. Just as we had hoped, when she was born, we loved her every bit as much as we did our first. For a while, we debated, “should we have more or stop at 2?”. Seemed like a logical question as we knew at the time we wanted an even amount of children. If we had one more than we would have to have another to even that out. We felt content with 2 and we had one girl and one boy and they seemed to love each other.  Well shortly after her first birthday, our decision was made for us. We found out we were pregnant with our 3rd. We knew it was a possibility as I had been having trouble with the hormonal forms of birth control and honestly, we were leaning more towards the “let’s have more” side since we found so much joy in the 2 we had so if it happened it happened and we would be happy. We were happy to be bringing another sweet baby into our family. We weren’t worried anymore that we wouldn’t be able to love another the way we loved the others because we knew now that we would and of course we did! Transitioning from 2 to 3 was much more difficult for us than transitioning from 1 to 2 but after about a year and a half, we felt we had finally transitioned well 🙂 We waited a bit longer and started thinking about adding our 4th and decidedly last baby. We became pregnant and in the fall, we welcomed what we thought was our last baby into our family. Things were looking good and we couldn’t be more happier until…….

A week after our last son was born, my husband went back to work, only to find he had been layed off from his job. It was devastating. I couldn’t work as I had just delivered. The next several months were probably the hardest our family had experienced. I went back to work as soon as I could picking up hours where I could. Meanwhile, my husband was on the hunt for a new job….any job really but was unsuccessful. He experienced difficulties due to lack of years of experience and expertise as well as being over qualified as he had 2 college degrees. Jobs that he qualified for because of his degrees wanted more experience than he had, which was very frustrating. Times were more stressful than ever but we stuck through it. Shortly after Max was 6 months, we were floored when we found out we were pregnant yet again. How did this happen? A stupid question it might seem to most people but honestly, we had done everything in the book to prevent it aside from one of us being “fixed” and let’s be honest here…..life with 4 young children leaves little time and energy for those kinds of “adult activities”. It brings tears to my eyes to think of how I felt when we found this out. I was the sole provider and my husband was trying everything he could to find a new job, putting in application after application to no avail. I didn’t think I had it in me and what would we do if he was still unemployed by the time this baby was born? How could we tell our friends and family? My coworkers would eventually find out too and they knew the difficulties we were already experiencing. How could I face the world? Not that it was really anybody’s business but people have opinions and aren’t afraid to tell you and people talk. I felt so alone and helpless. We had our hands full as it was with our 4 already and how could we safely and patiently care for another baby and keep the others happy as well? After a couple of weeks came to the reality that we would make it and be ok. We always work tough times out and we would this time too.  Needless to say, the next few months were very stressful, although we had finally become very excited to bring this precious joy into our family, despite the comments and reactions of others.  As her arrival was nearing, we became more stressed as my husband was still unable to find a job. It wasn’t until a few days before she was born that things started to change. He was suddenly thrown 3 jobs!  It meant he would have to start the day the baby girl and I were brought home from the hospital but hey….you do what you gotta do right?!  Times were still tough for since he was gone so much of the time and I was left alone with 5 young children under the age of 8 most of the time but at least we could financially support our family now 🙂 Who am I kidding? Times are still tough but we make it 🙂

I am tearful as I write this because even though Ansley (baby girl) was certainly not planned, in fact she was very much unplanned, we are so thankful for her everyday. She has completed our family in so many ways and we all couldn’t imagine life without her.  In case you are wondering if we plan on evening out the numbers with that 6th baby, the answer is no 🙂 Now that would be another HUGE surprise if that happened as it should be impossible at this point 😉

Thanks for reading and allowing me to share a personal story with you!

Back Talkin’

Ever feel like this (without the fist lol)? I mean, my kids can really get their “smart mouths” going, that’s for sure but ya know what? I am pretty sure there are times when I have brought it out in them.

I learned years ago that the more angry I sound with them or the more snappy I get, the more they do the same and I decided, well, that it is understandable! As adults, when someone gets snappy with you, don’t you naturally feel a quick defensive snappy retort build up inside you and maybe you even let it out. We can’t expect children do keep know how to keep their tempers in check if we can’t do the same.  I am terribly guilty of being over-tired or “over it” and not give my children the respect they deserve at times. Usually I am good at recognizing it when it happens and I quick fix it by taking a breath, apologizing and trying again. Sometimes, it takes longer than others I definitely need to work on this at times that’s for sure! I just find it hard to hold my children completely responsible and punish them for something I just also did to them or poorly role modeled to them and being the reason that they may have reacted that way. If it’s not me, I see them do this between each other. It’s much harder for me when I see it happen between them because I just want them to get along and not fight….don’t we all lol.  I try to intervene when I see it is needed and I will suggest a break and remind them of our golden rule (treat others the way you want to be treated). Usually they don’t care about the golden rule at that moment and they really just need a break. It can really get out of hand at times and I can’t stand it!

Anyway, I am not saying do nothing and let it continue. I am just saying that there should be an understanding of why it might happen and to think about how we can curb it instead of punishing them for something that is only natural to happen when one feels disrespected by another. It’s so easy to get to the point when you are overwhelmed and you have so many demands put on you to take it out on the ones you love the most. I have plenty of times huffed or rolled my eyes when my kids have asked me for things and I am busy. That can’t feel good to them 😦 They are a product of what they are surrounded by. Nature Vs. Nurture right? I mean of course personalities can be inherited but respect  can only be expected when it is given. That’s my opinion anyway.

I could really go on and on about this but I won’t. I will spare you lol. I do want to share this helpful blog post that I found with you all that talks about this very same issue 🙂

http://marytamborski.blogspot.com/2012/07/back-talk.html

It’s a great reminder for me to keep myself in check!

Happy New Year to all and thanks for reading! Here’s to a more peaceful year ahead 🙂

Another Mommy Confession with Mommy Brag

I hate transformers. I mean I really do. Aaron(5) loves those things and Kaitlyn(7) decided she would get one today with her money. She picked one that turns into a Rat, similar to the one in the picture. We get home and she asks me to put it together. I sat there for an hour trying to get it to do what it is supposed to do….with the instructions mind you.  Finally I said ” sometimes you have to walk away from things and come back to it later” because I had had it.  Aaron walks up and after less than a minute says “here ya go Kaitlyn” and he had finished it. He didn’t even look at the instructions. Why the heck didn’t I give it to him to help her with in the first place?! He is transformer king while I stink lol and should never be asked again to help with such a project haha!