Weddings...

I attended the wedding of our former babysitter tonight. I love weddings, they are such a wonderful celebration of family, of marriage, of children, of hope, of future.

I noticed that my notion of weddings has recently changed. Whenever I went to a wedding as a girl, I would end up dreaming of my own wedding (which really ended up being a glorified elopement, so not a fairytale...except I did get my prince). And now, despite the fact that my children are very young...I dream of their weddings.

That thought put me in tears through most of the night. The idea of my baby girl walking down the aisle with her daddy. Dancing with my sons at their weddings. My husband commented that I may be rushing things a bit, they are still in diapers, you know.

But I guess what made me winsome was the realization that a wedding, probably more than any other event, signifies the end of parenting. Now my duty is to fill these many days before those wedding bells ring with the task of raising my children to be godly mates for whomever the Lord choses for them. A daunting task, but a wondrous one as well. I've recently begun praying for their mates should they marry.

My children will likely move out before they marry. They will (hopefully) become independent before they say "I do". However, not until marriage does another person supersede the place of a parent. They will leave us and cleave to another. One day my little girl will wrap another man around her finger like she did with her daddy in the delivery room. And I hope to be the queen in my little boys' hearts for years to come, but when "she" comes, I sincerely will happily relinquish my throne.

A Bit of Bad Attitude

So, it is nearly 11 pm on a Wednesday night, and I have one heck of a mess to clean up in the kitchen and dining room downstairs.

A family member had the "significant other" fly in today to "meet the family", but said family member doesn't have a house suitable for entertaining. So it was agreed that we would have a BBQ here at our house so we could have a proper family event.

I really had a great time, but I guess I feel that there has been a lost art in "helping clean up". I was trained to help or at least offer to clean up after a dinner party. I admit that sometimes that doesn't seem like an attractive offer to the host since I have three kids under three, and usually after dinner, one or more is going into meltdown.

However, if someone is throwing a party on my behalf, I'd like to think that I'd make the effort to clean up to help out as a gesture at least of appreciation. And this family member had no kids.

I guess as a stay-at-home mom, I feel that sometimes people think I must have nothing to do and have a world of time to prepare for dinner parties and do load after load of dishes. I can't begin to express how little extra time I have, sometimes I feel guilty for going to the bathroom! In reality, I feel like this dinner party has consumed two entire days of energy...and it isn't that I begrudge doing it, I guess I just feel more taken for granted than appreciated.

I'm about to throw in the (workout) towel...

Okay, so I am now 5 1/2 months post-partum. I gained 51 pounds with pregnancy #1. Only 30 with pregnancy #2. And amazingly enough, about 22 of those pounds were gone within the first 10 days. That's the good news...the bad news is that these other eight are sticking on me like white on rice. You know the kind, the ones that don't come off with breastfeeding and ditching potato chips. You actually have to work at them. Okay, but I've been working now for a few months and seem to be getting nowhere.

So I have slowly worked myself to the conclusion that I just needed to exercise. And the only way I could figure out how to workout without spending a fortune at the gym or hire a babysitter during the day was to do the 5:30 am kickboxing at our church.

I started last month. Four weeks into it, I have not lost a single pound! This is most frustrating.

What I have gained is a grouchy attitude from making no progress, a tired existence as I wander through the day having gotten up at 4:45 am, and plaguing guilt if I think of skipping a day.

I race to bed right after the kids go to bed in an attempt to get my sleep in, but between a hubby who sleeps at 11 pm and a baby who gets up to eat at 3 am, I am finally realizing that this is not working.

I'm thinking my post-partum body is somehow stubbornly retaining these extra pounds probably cause I'm still mostly breastfeeding. I'll "enjoy" their company throughout summer season and hope that I can give them away by Christmas. In the meantime, tomorrow, I'm sleeping in.

Pink - Is it more white than red?

Lesson learned...whenever you are washing pink, it is ALWAYS a light load item.

Okay, I've only had boys till now, and now the baby girl clothes are getting a shade of greyish blue.

After the Mormons Came the Democrats...

(The following is not intended to offend any Democrat readers...)

In the bewitching hours after nap and before Daddy comes home, a knock comes at the door.

At first, I was ready to close the door on him, but I kept listening to him trying to figure out what he was doing at my door. Eventually after a rambling on for minutes and minutes about how the Republicans were so stupid...so pushy...so blah...blah...blah..., rolling his eyes with great drama whenever he said the "R-word". I realized he was fundraising for the DNC (Because, according to him, they only get money from people like me, not special interests or anything like that!) Anyways, I couldn't stand it any more (although it was pretty funny to see him go on), I said, "I'm sorry, we vote Republican". You should have seen the look on his face. It was as if he had spotted an alien and mumbled, "The true conservatives are really democrat! Come on!"

Anyways...I should have known what was coming when I first opened the door and the guy looked at me and asked, "Do you run a day care or are all these yours!?!" That's right, my husband and I will be providing the swing votes for the 2024 election.

I Hate Costco Milk Jugs

Okay, so we're big Costco fans, and can't seem to resist their cheap milk...$5.37 for two gallons.

But I hate the jugs that the milk comes in. They are spill-prone like you can't believe. Especially if my contacts aren't in and I'm pouring some for my 2-year old son who has been on a milk-binge recently and drinks about a gallon a week.

They actually have the nerve at Costco to actually advertise above the milk at the store that their jugs can pour if you lay them on the table and tilt them into the glass. But what if you are pouring into a tall sippy cup and the jug is 3/4 empty??? And really, is this such a fantastic marvel, that the milk would pour down into a cup if you tilt it on the table? I think even most pre-historic vessels do that...duh!

Well, even students at the UW have complained in their Daily. Article So it isn't just sleep deprived mothers, you know.

So my real intent in this post is to label it with enough relevant key words that every time someone googles "Costco milk jug" that this post will come up, and someone at Costco will realize what a horrible jug they are making, and change their spill-prone ways.

Rant complete...time for a glass of milk with extra napkins.

Perspective

One virtue lacking sometimes for us young mothers is perspective. You know, not sweating the small stuff, and realize that most things that we tend to worry about are A) things we can't change, B) things that don't really matter, or C) things that probably aren't going to happen the way we think.

I've seen mothers obsess over the microscopic fat content in their kid's chewable vitamins, I've heard of other mothers who cry that their preschool daughter can't add 100 + 50. And then, you know the type, the ones that only feed organic to their kids.

The fact is that a potato chip has more fat than 50 vitamins, that girl will probably figure out addition before she works at McDonalds at 16, and at some point, those organic kids are going to finally figure out what twinkies are.

My mom had a hard time balancing perspective. She was frustrated that her house wasn't clean when she had two preschool daughters. She felt embarassed when our neighbor's kids seemed more polite. She felt devastated to see her kids make mistakes, as if that was somehow not supposed to happen. The fact was, she was a great mom. She sewed us suitcases full of doll clothes, made bang-up birthday parties, taught us to beachcomb, and always found a good book to put in our hands. And she said "I love you" a hundred times a day and gave hugs to make sure our "love buckets" were always full.

But her lack of perspective eventually got the better of her. She fell victim to a "friend" that said, "You are a horrible mother, but I can make you a better one." So she began a relentless quest to "perfect" all her relationships, fearing that any imperfections in others were actually a reflection of her. Trouble was, most of the people she knew were imperfect, and it was just a matter of time before she drove everyone away, sadly, including her husband and kids.

Now, of course, this is sort of extreme, but I do think that sometimes we do far more damage to our kids by simply lacking proper perspective of life, than we would by just letting go a bit. We risk being unable to enjoy these years, or worse, prevent our children from enjoying them.

So sit back, relax, and remember, it's all small stuff.

My Day Off

I try to combine appointments to be on the same day, so I can minimize babysitter expenses. Plus, then I can usually squeeze in a couple hours between appts to have lunch with my sister, run some errands, etc. Kinda a day off...for me at least.

So I had my dental cleaning and my gyn exam today. In my past life (pre-kids, of course), I would have dreaded the discomfort of both, but I guess you know you're a mom when you pull into the dentist parking lot and sigh a relief like you're going into a spa.

The Perfect Mommy Syndrome

I'm afraid I have it. The compulsive desire to be perceived as a perfect mother.

Today, I felt incredibly guilty, shamed, embarassed, etc. after my 2 year old fell off the merry-go-round at the park. In a moment, I felt frozen, unable to analyze the situation well or move quickly enough to help him. Before another spinning kid's foot could accidentally kick him, another mom scooped him up. I put my baby down and ran over, but it seemed like it took forever till I grabbed for him.

Then the mom holding my child almost resisted giving him to me. I don't know why. Maybe it is because my son is adopted from Asia, and I am definitively not Asian myself. Or maybe it was because obviously I was such a lousy mom for taking so long to rescue him. I actually had to tell her, "He's mine" before she'd release him to me. I mumbled something about having to put the baby down hoping they'd think better of me.

I felt like every eye was on me, "What a horrible mother for not helping her son out sooner!"

And then to make matters worse, my son's scab from last week fell off in his tumble, so he was profusely bleeding from his ankle. Fortunately my friend had a wipe and band-aid, which this lousy mom forgot in the car.

I left the park just swirling with emotions...worried that my son could have gotten hurt worse, and thank God he wasn't. And then wondering why I was so consumed by worrying about what other moms' thought of me.

I guess I realize I have "Perfect Mommy Syndrome". I try my best not just to be a good mom, but also look like a good mom. It profoundly disturbs me if someone thinks otherwise. Why should it matter? Not sure I have the answer, but it does. And I know it shouldn't.

I quit my job for my kids; I join all kinds of mommy groups, volunteer at the nursery at church, and even fantasize about homeschooling...cause who could be a better teacher for my kids than me, right? I've made all the right "moves" it seems, but it scares me that in an instant, I could fail, and something awful could happen to one of my kids.

I guess I've tried to make all the right moves to be Mommy Perfect, but I am made aware each day multiple times that I fall short. Most of the time, my blunders are at home where I am spared other watching eyes. Those bother me, but not as much as the public displays of ineptitude.

As with most times I'm eating humble pie, I feel compelled to just take these issues to my Perfect Heavenly Father. I have recently added "God's Protection Over My Kids" on my daily prayer list... I guess I need to add "Perfect Mommy Syndrome" to that list, too.

A Beginning

So I've been a blogger for a while, but I tend to blog as a diary of my kids' lives. I mostly post photos for out-of-state friends and traveling grandparents, etc., but feel like I'd like to record more of my thoughts, separately. What reason? Well, many...maybe for my kids one day to read and know what I was thinking when they were small. Maybe just to have a diary I myself can look back on. But probably mostly, a chance to just write. I love writing...I used to write all the time at my "paying" job, but now, I'm desperate for a chance to communicate in complete sentences that don't begin with a "first-middle-last-name" and end with an exclamation point.

Jim Elliot talked about getting his degree in A.U.G., "Approved Unto God" (2 Tim. 2:15) as described in his biography, "Shadow of the Almighty". As I ponder motherhood, I realize that the only goal I should have is to raise my children according to God's will. I cannot guarantee their success, their salvation, their safety, and certainly not their submission! But I am called to trust God for all I need, and if I point toward His approval, I can rest letting him take care of the details.

My life has changed for the better since that pregnancy test turned a wavy line of pink. An adventure that I love, and since my brain ain't what it used to be, I feel compelled to write it down before I forget these delicious days forever.