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Motherhood is learning

Sometimes, being a mom is hard. Let’s just acknowledge that straight off. There are some days I want to cry or pull my hair out because of how things are going with the kids. But I think I’ve realized that those feelings don’t make me a bad mom. They just make me human. They also make me want to continue striving to be a better mom, which is a great thing, as long as I don’t set my expectations in a place above and beyond reality. That being said, most times being a mom is amazing. Notice I didn’t say easy, I don’t think it’s ever easy. But the rewards far outweigh any discouragements. I look at my three children and my heart is full to the brim with love. Each one of them is so unique.

Count Dooku is as eager for learning as I am. We both love to watch nature shows together and marvel at God’s amazing creations. He soaks everything up like a sponge and spouts all the facts he’s learned at random. He is the friendliest little guy, waving and saying hi to people we pass in public places and giving everyone a great smile. And oh, his self-confidence! I hope he never loses faith in himself. Just this morning he exclaimed, “Mom, I’m getting older. I can’t run quite as fast as a cheetah anymore.”

Obi Wan is the cuddliest, most loving little boy on the planet. He is always full of kisses and hugs for his family. He draws me endless pictures of hearts and rainbows to express his love. He is also incredibly thoughtful. He and I went alone to the store last week and at the end of the trip I bought him a pack of M&M’s. He opened his bag in the car and was busy munching on the way home, but at one point he stopped eating and folded the bag. When I asked him why he stopped eating he informed me that he was going to give the rest to Count Dooku and Sassy. How my heart melts when my kids are so thoughtful and kind to each other! He is always thinking of his siblings and wanting to share his treats with them.

Sassypants makes me smile and laugh at least a thousand times a day. She wakes up in the morning, talking happily to herself until I wake up. Then she always insists on bringing her two teddy bears and two blankies out with her to the kitchen table for breakfast. She loves her big brothers so much and tries to do everything they do. She runs through the house with them, screaming in her high pitched voice, her curls bobbing up and down. She jumps off the couch onto pillows and wants to play with the cars and trains just like her brothers do. But she still has her girly side. She happily sits in my lap while I mist and comb her hair. I love that she lets me put it in pigtails or braids. And she loves to wear dresses on Sunday. I could kiss her chubby little cheeks all day, and when she holds my hand she still wraps all of her fingers around just one of mine. She is a little bundle of contagious energy and joy.

Each child was born with a distinct personality and seeing that, has increased my testimony that we existed before our time on earth and will continue to exist beyond. There is so much more to come. I don’t think death is an end to learning and growing and experiencing. I think it’s a whole new beginning. I mourn more for those that are left behind more than those who have gone on ahead.

It’s amazing what my short time being a mother has taught me and I know there is much more that I can learn. There will be days where I will go to bed exhausted, wishing for a moment that the kids were grown up already, but those moments will be fleeting. Someday their youth will be gone, and like me, they’ll be wishing they could have it back.

Nothing of consequence…

…to say that is.

You may find it interesting to note that I seem to be considered quite an authority when it comes to swallowing and pooping out coins. This post has prompted more emails than I ever expected to receive, from worried parents whose children had also swallowed coins.

In other news, I think I’ve just taken the longest bloggy absence I’ve ever taken since beginning this blog over two years ago. This past week I’ve been super busy working on various blog designs and various etsy designs. Yeah, I opened an etsy shop, since I guess I don’t already have enough going on in my life. I’m just driven and sometimes stupid that way. Still, I’m excited about it. Right now all I’ve got up are photo cards, etsy banners and blog designs but I’m planning on selling some of these. Think I’ve got a chance? I think my design is really cute, but I’m pretty sure everyone thinks anything they design is good.

THEN, yesterday I woke up sick. I thought it was just a basic cold but then my body started aching. I am totally feeling wiped out. Yesterday and today have been crazy because of it. The kids are fending for themselves mainly and watching way too much TV because I haven’t got the energy to do much more than sit or lay around. Feeling crummy leads to crummy parenting. Blah!

I hope all of you sweet people who have stuck around reading are faring better than I. It takes work on this blog to come up with good post content, because I write more from the heart here than at my other place. I do have lots to say about some recent experiences but am still figuring out how to compose it all.

Thank you so much for your continuing comments and emails. They really buoy me up when I am down and make me feel connected when I’m struggling with the sometimes inevitable loneliness of stay at home motherhood.

What’s just one more thing to make me feel worthless?

Let me preface this post by explaining that I’m not trying to make anyone feel sorry for me. This is just how things are and I know it will pass. Venting is good. Now, to continue…

The last few days been really crappy. Yes, I use that word a lot, though maybe I shouldn’t. My disorder (though always present) has been particularly ugly and mean. And though I know better, I feel like a worthless piece of junk because of it. It’s hard not to think I ought to be able to do something about it, even when I know that fighting it just makes it worse. I’ve been sleeping poorly and wake up sore every morning and, oh my gosh, my jaws! I grind my teeth at night on a regular basis but so much worse when I am stressed. In short, I am telling myself I am a good person that is just struggling extra at this time but I am so not feeling that.

Then there was an incident this morning. The following is not for the faint of heart, and be thankful I didn’t take pictures because it was bad. Real bad. I walked into the kitchen and my eye caught something on the floor. Something I thought was perhaps raw meat drippings hubby hadn’t seen last night. And then I saw tiny paw prints, and then I saw blood. Blood, blood and more blood all scuffled through with tiny paw prints. Hairs dragged through the blood. Blood spatter all over the baseboard, blood drag marks all across the kitchen floor for heavens sake! I saw the mouse trap that had been triggered but no mouse to be seen.

I was furious! Livid that some stupid mouse had gotten wounded and escaped and dragged it’s bleeding body all over my house! I was sick to my stomach as I cleaned it up and curse the name of mouse forever! But then, as I walked into the living room, my eyes caught sight of the hamster cage. The hamster cage with the top door wide open. The door that I had forgotten to shut after filling the Hamsters food bowl last night. I knew in an instant that it was the hamster that had gotten injured by the trap and that it was my fault.

Yes, it’s a hamster. Yes, it’s a rodent. But she’s my rodent, my responsibility to protect and take care of and I had failed. Now she was probably off somewhere bleeding to death because of my mistake. I freaked. I lost it completely and hubby just held me as I sobbed into his arms. After I collected myself I took the flashlight and went searching for her. I was amazed to find her in the first place I looked - in the back of the kids closet. She came crawling out looking dazed and I saw a part of her nose had been snipped off. I was amazed that all that blood came from that. She’s back in her cage now and I don’t know if she’ll live or not. But yeah, I feel like a failure, as I look at her sleeping form.

I think I did learn something important though from today’s experience. I am a mother, and if I felt that guilty over an injured hamster, how much more awful would it be to have something happen to my kids (or someone else) because of a mistake I made. I have chosen to be a mother and I have the responsibility of taking care of them and keeping them safe to the best of my abilities. How often do I speed when driving? Or let teaching moments slip away because of laziness? I think I’m doing a good job but I could definitely be doing better. I love them so much and I don’t ever want to let my carelessness hurt them.

Family and Friends

I valued my friends more than I did my family while growing up. I was the oldest of 5 siblings, and other than the brother right beneath me in age (Clint), I wasn’t very close to any of them. My sister Whitney and I fought all the time. She wanted to be a part of everything Clint and I did. We saw her as a nuisance. An annoying tag along. I wanted nothing to do with her, and the rare times we did end up playing together always ended badly. We had slapping and scratching fights. I’m pretty sure she still has my fingernail gouges in her arms.

I shudder to think of how I treated her, but I know we have since forgiven each other, and I’m grateful that we’ve become friends. Sadly, we only started becoming friends right before I got married and moved away. I still feel like there is so much about her I need to get to know. The same goes for my two youngest siblings who were ages 12 and 9 when I moved away. I had dreams of being the big sister to them, that I always should have been to Whitney. But now they’re nearly grown up and of course we still live far away.

I can say now though, that we are all friends, in spite of the distance between us. We don’t communicate with each other that often but we know that we love each other and will be there for each other when we can. I’m pleased that as I’ve grown and matured, I’ve realized what my family has always been. They are my family and my friends, and I miss them!

Elk Neck State Park

This weekend I told Tom I really wanted to go camping (as I have many times before), but this time he said, Okay! Why has he never wanted to go camping before you ask? Well he has, but you see, I always spring these ideas last minute. I don’t like planning ahead because, well, what if I don’t feel like doing such and such a thing when the time comes around? I prefer to be spontaneous. And Tom is too busy with work to plan these things out. So I was thrilled when he decided to go along with my last minute, hair brained idea. We packed and hauled everything out to the car, called a campground we thought we would like and found out we could just show up, so off we went. We headed an hour and a half north of Baltimore up into Elk Neck State Park. We drove over the lovely Suquehanna River on our way:

Shortly thereafter we arrived at Elk Neck Campground and set up our tent. The children found it quite the novelty and enjoyed playing, Go Fish, inside the tent while Tom cooked and I kept getting everything else set up and organized:

We found out at the campground that the admission fee (just $25 a night) also included free entrance to a large recycled tire playground and “beach”. We wondered what the beach would look like, but it was actually a nice little area with coarse sand and water gently lapping at the shore. Too bad we didn’t bring our swimming gear. We mostly just stayed at our campsite, playing catch and enjoying the awesomely perfect weather and crackle of the fire. Oh, and Tom made, I think, the best chicken he has ever made. Here is the master at work:

Before we left he made a spice rub using paprika, pepper, cumin, red pepper, chili powder, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, sugar and celery seasoning. He then butterflied the chicken and slathered the rub both outside and underneath the skin and let it sit in the fridge for 6 hours to absorb the rub. When we got to the campground he first roasted the chicken inside our dutch oven with some Mesquite wood chips and then he finished it on the grill.

It. was. DIVINE! Fully flavored throughout and juicy with super crisp skin. Mmmmmm! We had S’mores after dinner (mine were with Reese’s Pieces) and we sat around enjoying the sounds of the night and the fireflies’ sparkling dance. At one point, as I shone the flashlight toward the tent I saw a little orange toad hopping across our camp site. He was so cute! We all went to bed after that and slept pretty soundly, except for me waking at 3:00 in the morning having to pee! But at least I was able to fall right back asleep. Do you know that it’s a wee bit scary to have to use the bathroom at 3 AM and hear sounds of snapping twigs all around you coming from the forest. The forest was definitely alive, but I figured (and hoped) that most of the creatures I was hearing were small.

In the morning we ate breakfast and took a hike. I just love daddy’s and tiny daughters holding hands, don’t you? Also, little girl pigtails. Too fun!

Along the trail we found some neat “Tarzan” vines:

Of course, the children all wanted to hang on them, but we were a little wary:

After about 8/10 of a mile we reached Turkey Point Lighthouse:

Turkey Point Lighthouse is on a 100 foot high Bluff, overlooking the Elk Neck River and the Chesapeake Bay. the Lighthouse is 31 1/2 feet high and visible for 13 miles. It’s no longer in operation though. The last lighthouse keeper, Fannie May Salter, retired in 1947. We were able to go up into the Lighthouse, which was a pleasant surprise. The lighthouse stairs are very narrow and windy. They lead up to a short straight ladder which then leads into the Watch Room.

The Watch Room and Balcony were both very small and we weren’t allowed out onto the Balcony. Here is the light:

And looking out from the lighthouse at the Elk Neck River and Chesapeake bay:

We had a really wonderful time disappearing for the weekend. We were in an area on the Penninsula where no one could reach us by cell phone and we had no household cares. No TV or radio or other distracting noise. We just had each other to spend time with and it was so wonderful!

Just to let you know…

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A Feature and a Picture

Most of you readers know that I’m a Mormon but you still may not know much about Mormonism. I’m being featured today at a site specifically geared toward Non-Mormons.

Mormon Women is a blog I recently found that tries to battle common misconceptions by offering first hand accounts of what Mormon Women are really like. So if you want to read a little more about me and my faith you can visit me over there today.

Now I’ll leave you with a picture. This is what happened when I assumed she couldn’t pull the caps off of the markers. Where, oh where, did my little baby go?