Category: gratitude

children, gratitude, happiness, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

You & Me

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This is why it is good to be a Mommy of a five year old boy.  They have yet to develop a searing need to be completely independent of you.  They miraculously even think you’re pretty cool, too.  And for a woman whose age scale has begun its inevitable tip toward the middle, any accolade of cool is much appreciated.

I took my sort of cool self to Full Speed’s class to volunteer.  It was a perfect way to meet his new teacher, she’s very nice by the way, and see what’s what.  It was an early dismissal day and there was pizza.  I helped with the food, the clean-up and with whatever odds and ends she threw at me.  Full Speed’s classmates were extremely adorable and I had a great time meeting them.

When I asked Full Speed what his favorite part of the morning was he said, “When you came in to visit me.”

And that’s when my ego grew three times its normal size.

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children, gratitude, happiness, humor, kids, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting, tantrums, terrible threes

Wha?

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T.Puzzle had an interesting statement.

“I not cry at drop-off today, Mommy.”

Wha?

Did my often unpredictible, at times overly emotional, fully commited to the terrible threes child tell me he wasn’t going to throw a tantrum?

I’ve heard of out of body experiences.  This was mine.

My loyal readers will understand the magnitude of what T.Puzzle was saying to me.

My motherhood journey to this moment has been anything but easy.

And now, here we are.

Tearless drop-offs for T.Puzzle.

What’s next?

Armageddon?

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children, gratitude, kids, kindergarten, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Happy Face

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I am getting better at the kindergarten drop-off.  Full Speed  is still doing awesome with it.  He even does silly things to try to make me laugh (like putting his backpack on his head or doing a funny dance) as he walks towards the doors of school.

Even though it is going swimmingly, my heart still aches as I have to leave him there.  Without realizing this morning, I inhaled sharply and let out a long, slow breath as I watched Full Speed get out of the truck.

T.Puzzle, who seems to have inherited some of my highly empathic genes, immediatlely asks, “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

It shocked me back into the present moment.  I was stunned that my three year old picked up on this and a reminder that little eyes and ears are always watching.

“Oh, T.Puzzle, sometimes Mommy gets sad when I have to drop Full Speed at kindergarten.  I miss him and I miss you while you are at school.”

“It’s okay, Mommy.  Put on your happy face, okay?”

So, I did.  Thanks, T.Puzzle.

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children, gratitude, happiness, humor, kids, marital blissishness, marriage, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Birthday

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Ohio Stadium, home of the Ohio State Buckeyes ...
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Heading into my birthday weekend (yes, I turned 36), I had the weighted guilt of bad-mommy mojo slowing me down.  When I picked up T.Puzzle from school on Friday after only his second day back, I felt huge relief that the incident memo I received from his teacher was a result of an injury.  Thankfully he had not physically lashed out at another student. It’s hard to feel like an awesome Mom when my first thought over such a thing is “Yay!  My kid tripped, bit his tongue and cried.  Oh, thank  god!”

Sorry, T.Puzzle.

What’s a girl to do?  Only thing she can, hire a babysitter and go away for the night with your husband I guess.

Mad Dog has a simple formula for a successful marriage.  Since he is married to an emotionally sensitive woman and her birthday celebration unfortunately seems to always coincide with an Ohio State Buckeye‘s game, his answer is simple:  spa, baby!

Yes, my marvellous man sent me to the spa while he hung out at the hotel’s sports bar.  It was a win-win.  Literally, the Buckeyes won.  After I returned from the spa, we went on to have a spectacular dinner and a lovely time.

Full Speed and T.Puzzle in happier times

When the fun was over and we were driving home I received a text from our sitter that T.Puzzle had bit Full Speed.  Was it bad that my first thought was to ignore the text and as we approached our exit to home, tell Mad Dog to skip it and keep on driving??

Of course I texted her how to handle the fall-out and Mad Dog and I promptly emptied our wallets for our eternal gratitude for our babysitter and any lasting emotional distress she may incur.  Anyone that survives an overnight with Full Speed and T.Puzzle is alright by me.

I’m just thankful T.Puzzle bit his brother instead of her.

Sorry, Full Speed.

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children, gratitude, grief, happiness, loss of parent, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Slam Dunk

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Hoosiers
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The goal in writing this blog is to give some much needed observatory distance from the chaos that is my every day life.  It helps if I take a moment to reflect on the day’s events and allows me to be a more accepting person/Mom.  I have grown leaps and bounds in acceptance but there are still times when I find myself holding my breath and wishing that my boys were a tad bit calmer than they actually are.

It just ain’t so.

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I had high expectations for our family movie night viewing of ‘Hoosiers‘.  While I am at heart a true girlie girl, I appreciate good sports and I adore a good sports movie.  This particular movie is very special to me.  I vividly remember going with my Mom to see it and we bonded tremendously over the nail-biting basketball sequences and rooting for the underdog.  I truly felt like my mother’s daughter after this experience.  She, the lover of all things basketball, realized that maybe I wasn’t only all about lip-gloss and hairspray.

I prepared myself that the boys would lose interest in about the first five minutes of the movie.  Despite this mental preparation I couldn’t help but ‘wish’ that they would sit quietly for its duration and maybe even love it a little, too.

Thankfully, it exceeded my expectations.  Granted, T.Puzzle fell asleep because the movie had a late start, but Full Speed was riveted.

T.Puzzle can't run with the big dogs and falls asleep before Hoosier's sectionals. No worries, we own the movie little guy.

Maybe there’s more to each of us than we realize.

If we learn to let go of what we think people should be, they might just surprise us and be exactly who we need.

And learning this is the slam-dunk of motherhood.

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