Showing posts with label moms. Show all posts

An Extraordinary Idea

William Shakespeare wrote: “And this above all unto thine own self be true and it shall follow as the day the night - thou can'st not then be false to any man.” He certainly hit the nail on the head with that one, what wonderful advice. So simple yet poetic, basically be true to you. But no us humans can’t be that way we try day after day to mold ourselves into what society wants us to be. You see it all around you: the teenage girl who much rather be playing in the mud, but does she do this no she conforms to what she believes a girl should be doing; she works hard to fit in and this patterns continues throughout her life, you will see it again when she’s dating, or try to pick a college and again when she is a mother and she is constantly plagued with guilt because she feels she is inferior to all the other mothers and so what does she do. She works relentlessly trying to be what she thinks the world around her wants her to be ignoring who she is and what she wants and believes. You don’t see this kind of insanity with animals a dog is a dog he sleeps because he is tried, he eats when he is hungry, plays when he is playful; he is happy being his cute doggy self he doesn’t look at the dog next door and think ‘I better start acting like a better dog’. But in the human world throughout our life we work very hard on being “normal” and doing what we believe other people think we should be doing. I wonder what it would be like to act extraordinarily uncommon would it be a breath of fresh air, I think it would be freeing. I am unsure as to why we all want to be alike, God created us as individuals we are his finest creation and really did he intend on having a band of identical instruments strumming the same tune, I certainly hope not how incredibly boring. We are all unique instruments playing our own tune in the musical called life. But so often we do not like our music and the neighbors sounds so much better so we stay up at night working and pondering try to ‘Keep up with the Jones’ so to speak. We put pressure on our kids, husband and everyone around us to be “normal” because we don’t want to be embarrassed by our husbands acting goofy or our kids being different or our slow mother talking to complete strangers about her breakfast. So instead of letting our husbands act absurdly foolish and laughing with him, or letting your kids wear mix matched shoes or enjoying the slow pace of your mom we criticize and force the people around us to act appropriate and in the end we are not happy and well adjusted all we have achieved is stress and resentful feeling. So instead of trying to fit in we should embrace the eccentricities around us, we should let our hair down put on a feather boa or floppy hat and stop try to be ordinary because acting like a normal person is exhausting let’s try to be true to ourselves and play our unique instrument loudly exclaiming to world that I am wonderfully extraordinary!!!

Halloween and Such

This Halloween was unlike any other Halloween or day, it was "one of those days" you know those days that you feel like you got the D- mother award. The events of this Halloween started on October 31st at 3:00am when I was woken up by my little girl crying. I rushed into her room to find her sitting up in bed crying and calling "mommy, mommy!" As I picked her up I could feel her hot skin touch mine and I knew she was sick. When I took her temperature I found it to be 39.4 C so I dosed her up when anti febrile medications and took her to bed with me and needless to say I didn't get much sleep. Then as morning came her temperature was still 39.4 and after more medications, Popsicles, a temped bath and watching her favourite movie "Happy Feet" finally her temperature broke!!! Which I was very grateful for because even though she was very sick she kept asking me when do we go trick or treat!! Meanwhile while this was happening her little brother was sick as well, he didn't have a temperature but he was coughing and he just wanted mom and every time I would set him down he would cry. And even still today they remain unwell and they are both calling for my undivided attention. Days like these are the real test of motherhood, because who do you choose and what do you do first? I pride myself on being the queen of prioritizing, I can prioritize anything, anywhere without much thought and I am able to efficiently and effectively get the job done, except with my children. How do you decide who needs you more, you have two little people wanting you at the same time so you are jumping back and forth between them trying to meet their needs and you feel like you are spinning out of control and you want to shout stop!!! Then at the end of the day you fall into a crumpled tired ball feeling like you were neither a good mom or a good caregiver and you feel as though you just didn't do enough and you pray tomorrow they will be feeling well again. Yes this is a motherhood test it happens to us all and I am certain we all feel the same way. We try our best never actually feeling like we are doing our best but our kids are happy and well taken care of, never knowing just how insecure we are. At the end of the day instead of beating ourselves up we just need to relax and say we did our best even if the day was a crazy whirl wind and we aren't quite sure what we did but we do know we made our kids feel better and that is worth putting up our feet up, having a glass of wine and saying today we might not have gotten the A+ mother award but we did a fine job!!! In the end on Halloween my kids were well enough to get dress up, they both were in very cute giraffe costumes and they did a little trick or treating. We also had a lovely supper at my sisters house and all in all the day wasn't so bad and I think everyone was happy and I was grateful that the kids got to enjoy Halloween. And right now my kids are sleeping, so my feet are up and I thought I would pass on some encouraging advice to all the mothers out there today who feel they are being pulled in 100 different directions and never feel they measure up. You are a good mom and tonight have soak in the tub and tell yourself you did your best and today will pass by like all other days and tomorrow the sun will come up followed by laughter and smiles and little voices saying " I love you mom" and that's what makes it all worthwhile!!!
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