motherhood – Page 27 – Writes for all Mommies

family, gratitude, happiness, motherhood

My Field of Dreams

25/06/2016 WFAM

We were on our way. We had travelled many miles and planned months in advance for this day. This was THE day.

Full Speed and T.Puzzle were going to their first Cubs game.

In the weeks leading up to this momentous event, I tried to convey to them how special this was to me. So much of my childhood and memories of my mom were wrapped up in Cubs’ fandom. I had met Mad Dog because of the Cubs. Our first date was in the left field bleachers. I fell in love with Mad Dog at Wrigley.

Wrigley Field is my mecca.

Obviously, I was feeling a bit emotional but mostly excited. We decided to walk part of the way from our rented, summer apartment and grab a cab closer to the field.

We stayed near the zoo and went nearly every day. That was so much fun!

Then, I felt the first raindrop. Then, another. Soon, I wasn’t sure if I was feeling rain wet my face or anxious tears.

How could it threaten to rain on this of all days? The most holiest day of my young children’s lives?

Inwardly (ok, outwardly, too) I started to freak out. Full Speed could tell I was losing it and quickly grabbed my hand.

“It’s okay, Mom. It’s only raining a little. It’s going to be okay.”

And, then, almost instantly it was okay.

Here’s why: I stopped focusing on all the things that could go wrong (possible rain, thunder, game cancellation) and started to look at all that was wonderful.

First of all, I had this incredibly handsome and caring young man holding my hand. Wow, Full Speed is going to make one heck of a husband when he grows up. Which brought me to my own husband. He worked so hard and planned so carefully for our little family to have this awesome Cubs experience for two reasons. First, he is a Cubs fan, but secondly, because he does all he can to make me happy. Seeing him up ahead leading our little family and watching him stay positive that no rain would slow us down, made my heart full.

I decided in that moment that I wasn’t going to let the threat of bad weather ruin this awesome day. However it unfolded was going to be perfect. I was with my favorite guys and all I felt was gratitude.

Sure enough, soon after we arrived in the park it rained and rained and rained.

What did we do? We got some ponchos and soldiered on.

With much anticipation and thankfully no thunder, the game started on time. Within moments, the Diamondbacks had a runner on and their clean-up hitter launched a line drive home run to right-center. It was the kind of homer you instantly knew it was gone. The way it cracked off the bat was soul-crushing.

And, it still rained on us. A lot.

Somehow the Cubs made a comeback, honestly if you’ve been watching their season at all, this is hardly surprising. Offensively they are a juggernaut. They managed to get the lead back by the fourth inning and maintain it until the end. This only got sweeter when my favorite player, Anthony Rizzo, clocked a solo home run in the bottom of the eighth inning. I screamed so loud I nearly lost my voice. You can actually see us on the MLB recap as we were behind home plate as Rizzo completes his trek around the bases. We are easy to spot because I am jumping for joy. To this day, Full Speed does a dead-on impersonation of me jumping around like a crazy person for Anthony’s home run.

Here’s the screen shot, it’s a little blurry but there we are, front row in our ponchos. T.Puzzle is standing looking up at me, I’m cheering, Full Speed is seated and Mad Dog is snapping a pic. So AWESOME!

It was a magical, magical day.

Thank you, Wrigley Field.

You did not let me down.

children, humor, motherhood

The Truth Be Told

05/05/2016 WFAM

T.Puzzle has been quite sick with a bad cold. He is finally much better. Full Speed and I gauge his health status by how much he annoys Full Speed. We knew he was really sick when he had zero energy to needle his older brother. Those were worrisome days. He’s now back to full-on annoyance mode so we are pretty sure he’s in fine health.

Over the course of T.Puzzle’s illness we have watched a lot of sports. I’m still beyond excited that the Chicago Cubs are so awesome again this season. It is something my boys and I actually want to watch together.

Sometimes, when my favorite player is up or on a commercial, I’ll pause the television and pretend he’s talking to me (forgive me, I’ve been homebound with a sick kid for days and days, my judgment is questionable at best). T.Puzzle finds this a curious thing.

“Mom, if you weren’t married to Dad, would you marry Anthony Rizzo?”

“Well, T.Puzzle, he’s a little bit too young for me.”

Full Speed, never one to be left out declares, “I’ll say!”

T.Puzzle asks, “How much older are you than him, Mom?”

Full Speed responds without missing a beat, “Sixty-four years!”

Me: “What?!?”

Full Speed: “I meant Sixty-FIVE!”

While I hold some truths to be self evident, is it really necessary to declare them all out loud?

I should hope not.

humor, motherhood, parenting

Your People

15/03/2016 WFAM

Family vacations are stressful. Why is that? Maybe because you plan weeks or months in advance and there are expectations that everyone will be cheerful and have fun doing extraordinary and often expensive activities. So, the pressure is ON. Have fun OR ELSE! You throw in an aversion for crowds and noise, put me on a cruise ship full of screaming kids and there isn’t anyone or anything that can save me or whoever ends up in my path.

We were standing by the balcony overlooking the main floor of the ship when T.Puzzle accidentally stepped on my foot.

I snapped.

My temper shorted out and I yelled at him to ‘Quit it!’ or ‘Cut it out!’ or ‘For the love of all that is good and decent in the world, STOP STEPPING ON MY FEET!’

To an outside observer it would seem that it was an innocent mistake by a distracted nine year old boy. They wouldn’t know the back story of how this said boy steps on my feet religiously. If he could bottle his accuracy of squashing my toes, this kid would give a trained sniper a run for his money.

The squashed toes were the icing. The pressure of FUN was getting to me. I looked at Mad Dog in despair.

He said, “I know with our family we are going to have highs and lows. While the highs are tremendous, there are days when you are so frustrated that you want to give our children up for adoption (I’m politely paraphrasing this last part). You have to accept the good with the bad.”

This made me pause. He was right, of course, but why am I always so ready to fly off the handle with the people I love the most in the world? I wouldn’t snap at a friend if she stepped on my toes. I would laugh it off and be on my merry way.

The difference is the amount of shared history. When you live life with people day in and day out, your truth seeps out whether you like it or not. You let the ugly flow because on some level you know that these are YOUR PEOPLE. They love you unconditionally.

If you can be your truest self around someone, and that includes all the stuff you hide from 99.9% of the rest of the population, then you know you feel safe with them.

Every one of us is complicated. Most of us strive to be our best.

If we are really lucky, we can be our worst, too…

3 times over.

children, motherhood

The Story of a girl and her First Little Buckeye

30/01/201630/01/2016 WFAM

Well over a decade ago, the girl had her First Little Buckeye. Even though she was of an age that society deemed her to be a responsible adult, she didn’t feel very grown-up and worried she wasn’t going to mother him correctly. The first time she held him in her arms was transcendent. Her worry and her fear left her. All she felt was peace. Peace for the girl is highly unusual. This is why she remembers it so vividly. She looked down into his tiny, baby face and felt comforted by him. She thought that was odd. How was a tiny baby going to take care of her? She didn’t know, but she was thankful he was here. She was grateful he was healthy. She holds that memory in a pocket close to her heart. On her hardest days, as life can be hard, she reaches into this pocket and remembers that love. That memory of peace reminds her that no matter what shows up in her world, everything is going to be okay.

Now, enough about the girl, let’s get to the fun stuff. Let’s learn a little bit more about the FLB. He loves life. He loves learning. He sometimes loves his Little Brother, but sometimes he only tolerates him. It depends on his mood and how much his Little Brother is annoying him on that particular day.

im1.shutterfly-8 — Loves his Little Brother

im1.shutterfly-9 — About ready to lose it on his Little Brother

The girl tries to stay out of the way. It’s hard to believe that their relationship and their lives in general aren’t really her business. She’s working on staying out of the way. She doesn’t always succeed at this. At least she is trying.

A couple months back, the FLB’s love of learning earned him a spot in the county-wide spelling bee. He managed to beat out all the other 5th and 6th graders at his school. It was a pretty amazing day. That meant over holiday break and beyond, he had to study, study, study to get ready for the Big Show at county. It was a lot of work but he didn’t mind it. He actually kind of liked the challenge of learning all these new, almost-impossible-to-pronounce-yet-harder-to-spell words. The girl remembered to stay out of his way. She told him she trusted him completely. If he wanted to study all the time or not at all, she was going to support him. He chose somewhere in between all the time and not at all. It was a good, steady balance of studying that kept his attitude good, steady and balanced. That’s all the girl cared about. She wanted him to feel good about the process and he did. So, she felt good about the process, too.

FullSizeRender (5) — The FLB celebrating his school win

About a month before the night of the Big Show, the girl needed to have a serious talk with her FLB. She wanted him to know something very important about what her expectations were for him regarding the competition. This is what she said to him:

â€œI want you to remember that you are awesome. The amount of awesome you have inside you is static. That means it doesn’t change. There is nothing you can or can’t do to change this fact. At the beginning of the spelling bee you will be awesome. At the end of the spelling bee you will be awesome. And during the middle, you will still be equally awesome. Winning or losing can’t change your awesome-ness. If you wonder how I know this it’s because when you were a baby and I held you in my arms for the very first time I loved you instantly. I kind of already loved you before I even knew you. Why? It wasn’t because I thought to myself, ‘someday this kid is going to be great at spelling.’ No, it was because you were awesome. You were then, you are now and you always will be.â€

Most of the time the FLB is polite when the girl goes into one of her â€˜Love-You-As-You-Are Lectures’ because let’s face it, there are SO MANY of them. The girl can’t help it. It’s who she is. The FLB knows this about her so he is respectfully quiet. The girl is never quite sure if he is actually listening to her but she lectures anyway. However this time, the girl felt like maybe this Love Lecture penetrated his soul a little. He seemed a little more sure of himself and seemed to have even more relaxed fun in his study preparations. The girl was relieved that he believed her. Sometimes as children we don’t believe the good our parents tell us about ourselves even though it is a proven fact that the good is ALWAYS TRUE. We only have to be brave enough on the inside to believe it. Thankfully, the FLB is brave enough. At least the girl hoped he was.

On the actual day of the Big Show and right before the spelling bee started, the girl’s eyes swept over the mass of talented spellers selected from each school in the county. Sure, she felt proud the FLB was included in this group but she also felt something else. This isn’t something the girl talks about very much, but growing up she kind of never really fit in anywhere. She stills feels that way. She thinks most of the whole world feels this way but no one ever says it out loud. So, as she watched those amazing, nervous kids, she could see herself in them. She could see the shy ones, the awkward ones, the ones who looked like they might pass out from nerves and she could relate. She saw the FLB way in the back row, he’s kind of small so she had to strain her neck and there he was. Yes, he seemed a bit nervous but he owned that stage. He was all confidence and class. It was if he understood he was among peers and while they may not be the considered the â€˜coolest’ when in the mainstream of school life, he seemed perfectly fine about it. He is who he is and he knows he’s enough exactly as he is. The girl’s heart was full. She already won even before the first letter was spoken. She won because the FLB had already won.

He remembered he was awesome.

When he happened to place 2nd in the whole county the girl thought to herself, â€˜isn’t that an embarrassment of riches?’

im1.shutterfly-5 — The FLB celebrating his 2nd place finish with his Little Brother

The End

children, family, health, motherhood

Oh Well(ness) Visit

09/01/201609/01/2016 WFAM

There are so many aspects of motherhood that get easier and easier as your children grow. It is so nice to be able to take the boys for their wellness check-ups and for the most part, they behave like normal people. For the most part,…

I no longer have concerns about Full Speed’s attitude or behavior while at the doctor. As for T.Puzzle, his behavior is generally really good, but his attitude is precarious at times.

Overall, his recent 9 year wellness-check went very smoothly. That is until we got to the portion where the doctor had to ask him direct questions. Left to his own devices, it’s hard to know what he’s going to say.

Doc: “What grade are you in?”

T.Puzzle: “Third grade.”

So far so good.

Doc: “What do you drink with your meals?”

Imperceptibly, I gulped.

T.Puzzle: “Milk.”

I’m glad he didn’t share with her the 14,000 gallons of Sprite he consumed over holiday break.

The rest of the questions he answered as you would expect. Grades? Fine. Wearing a bike helmet? Check. Favorite food to eat? Chinese (at least there are some vegetables in it, right?).

Then the questions turned to favorite hobbies.

Doc: “What do you do for fun?”

T.Puzzle: “Video games.”

I appreciated his honesty and since his weight and height were in a normal range for him, I don’t think the doctor was concerned. Also, the myriad of bruises and scars on his legs were evidence that he’s a rough and tumble kind of kid.

Doc: “What do you do to keep active?”

He looked to me to explain what she meant.

Me: “You know. When Mom and Dad make you play outside?”

He paused momentarily….

T.Puzzle: “It’s classified.”

So close…

Better luck next year!