I not THAT mom - I AM THAT MOM!!!

I’m not THAT mom!



Please be aware that I am one woman writing from a woman’s perspective and these are my view alone held be me but here are my thoughts…..


Moms and women put WAAYYY too much pressure on ourselves and I think half of the time our kids and husbands don’t care as much as we think they do.


I remember once my daughter came home telling me about so-and-so’s hair and how her mom did it up in these cute little pigtails with cute little flower barrettes and ribbons that her mom made. I chuckled and replied. I am not THAT mom. I have no artistic ability and I am horrible at crafts. For awhile, I let myself become troubled by my daughters lack of perfect hair barrettes until I commissioned a friend to make my daughter some hair barrettes and return for cash. This agreement worked. But then there are other things.


In preschool, you could sign up to be a room helper for the day. Since Chris and I both work during the day this was not a realistic option for us. My mom was able to go up to help in the classroom and was really good at it. Then I became torn as a parent that my mom was able to do those things that I couldn’t do as a mom. Because, I am not THAT mom that can spend the day helping in preschool and that’s just how it is. But, I realized that it was about the experience and I am lucky to have a mom that loves my kids the way she does and has the day available to spend with my kids and their preschool classrooms. She also gave me the scoop on who to encourage time with and who to avoid.


Here are some of the ways that we as women judge each other on probably a daily basis


Career – Stay at home


There is too much on this one to even get started.


Breastfeeding – Bottle Feeding


I am going to pause for a moment to interject something on this one. I have never before seen one man walk up to another man and judge his parenting skills, love for his child, child’s future IQ, or health consequences of breast vs. bottle feeding. Yet, as women this becomes a major point of competition or judgment. What gives us the right? Really, we read an article on a message board and now the other mom is inferior or doesn’t love her kid as much?? Can’t we just be happy that she has fed her kid and move on?


Vaccinations


School


Daycare


Preschool


Public vs. Private Schools


As women we have been charged with caring for the next generation. It is our task to raise them right and train them to go out into the world. The struggle that I see is that at some point in time it became a competition. Some slapped a number on our backs and we are now in a race against the other moms. This is not a team sport but rather a race. Instead of asking the mom with 6 kids if she needs help when her kids have a meltdown in the store, we judge her for having 6. Instead of being content with the mom that has chose to have only one child, we ask her when she is having her next. We even give our suggestions of how close in age is a good choice.


The old adage of “It takes a village to raise a child” has been replaced with “The tribe has voted and you are off of the island”. Reality TV has allowed us to sit on our butts and judge those on the little box. We have earned the right to call in and decide who deserves the million dollars. Who do we think “played the game” and deserves the right to stay on the island. Here is the struggle I see in bring those thoughts into our relationships. If we begin to vote people off the island when they don’t think like us then where does that leave us? We are left with everyone who has the same belief system that we do. This means we are ALONE.


I recently had a slumber party for 7 little girls in my home for my daughter’s birthday. We stayed up until almost 2am. We ate pizza, did the Cha Cha slide, did a fashion show and they squished cupcakes into their adorable faces. What’s funny is one mom comment on how “Brave” I was. I just chuckled. See I have no desire to make a homemade barrette but I have WAITED for the day when she could have slumber parties and I had a BLAST! We all have our strengths and if we focus on those then we discover who exactly God calls us to be as a parent. We will find out those things that we can look at and say. I AM THAT MOM!


Take a moment today to tell another mom that she is doing a great job. Vote her onto the island and give her a hug. Support her weakness instead of gossiping. If you see that mom with the “bad” kid in the store instead of glaring at her then offer her support. You never know what a women is going through. We all could use an extra hug!

7 girls celebrating 7 years

Tonight I spent the evening with seven wonderful ladies celebrating my daughter's seventh birthday. I had some help from my Mom and Chris. My mom was awesome to bring over her camera and capture over one hundred pictures of the event. Chris was a saint to not take any of the several offers from coworkers to hide out at their houses. Right now it is well after one in the morning and I am snuggling both my laptop and my very sleepy but refusing to let the night end daughter. She is adorable with her sleepy eyes refusing to let them closed as they are ooohhhhh soooo heavyyyy. :) Before I get my few hours of rest before muffins in the morning I want to capture these moments forever. Here are a list of random moments in no particular order and with no names to protec the innocent and the guilty :)
Pizza
Soda
Chips
Popcorn
More Chips
Barbies
Presents
Old Friends
New Friends
School Friends
Church Friends
Old Church Friends
Tangled
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Girls Rock WOOT WOOT Girl Time WOOT WOOT Girls Rule WOOT WOOT Boys Drool WOOT WOOT and anything else that they could think of that allowed for a little WOOT WOOT at the end Cha Cha Slide
Rockin' to Newsboys
Jammies
Photo Shoot
Makeup
Dress Up
PLEASE don't take my picture
 PLEASE just take one more picture of me
UMMM take one like this
Now take another
A few tears, a few band-aids and some indepence gained
Girl drama (inviting six of your closet friends over involves 5 girls finding out that you have other friends) Finding the leaders, the caretakers, the organizers, the lovers, the snugglers and everything in between in our future generation (priceless!!)
Ok, so this line is to go potty and this line is the brush your teeth - GOT IT?
 PITSTOP!
Whoops, I farted again! I did it in the bedroom earlier - Did you smell it?
Hey Miss Jessi, Have I told you......?
Umm I can't hear the movie....
Sleepy girls who just want to play just a bit longer
Telling the girls a fairy tale about a little girl named Princess Elisha, the King and Queen that adopted her and how she met the six other princesses :)
My little girls is seven now and we celebrated it with friends and had a blast!!! Now I sleep :) They will be up early......

Hug tightly.....repeat as necessary....

I could write an entire blog apologizing about why I haven't blogged or catching you up on my life. But it is for those reasons that I have not been on here to just blog for fun. So hang on...I am jumping right in.

I am having a pre mid-life crisis. Am I old enough for that? Ok so I don't know what the diagnosis is but here are the symptoms. My babies grew up. Wow it feels good just to type those three words. For those of you that see my kids regularly this isn't a surprise. They are children and not babies. They walk, talk, have personalities and are their own little people. But for me this has been one of those progressions that happens before my eyes and its hard to notice. They are so stinking big.

Chris and I were driving this morning as he was dropping me off at the airport and I saw a woman pulling a little boy in a wagon. He was so cute and chubby cheeked riding along. We still have our stroller at our house from our family wagon rides. They grew up! No, I am not going to drudge myself through all of the things that have passed and try to make them both fit in the wagon again but here is what I am going to do.

Hug! Hug often and hug well.

I have another confession to make. I am the "inappropriate hugger". I could relive many instances when I have hugged someone that you aren't supposed to hug. It just happens. When my emotions are raw, or I get excited I hug. It's like how a small dog pees on the floor when they get excited or nervous. I am not sure which is better - peeing on the floor or hugging a female coworker that I am pretty sure thinks I am gay now. Either way - it's what I do. It's like a tick.

I love to hug! Not the little wussy hugs where you just lean forward and give two pats on the back but a real hug. Here's the problem with American society. We aren't huggers. Not sure when it happened but it did. Political correctness went out the window and we have resorted to handshakes and grunts. Now, I am not going to get myself fired by running around and hugging my coworkers. I am having a visual right now of several peoples reactions and it would be a fun social experiment. But, I am going to focus on hugging those that I won't get fired for touching.

I travel and when I return home I love to get back to the hugs of my hubby and kids. It's so energizing to hug and snuggle them after being away. When I am gone and I talk to my kids on the phone I send them hugs over the phone. It's just something that we have always done. Everybody blows kisses but we throw hugs as well. So here's my checklist for the week.

1) Hug my family
2) Enjoy right now because tomorrow it will be a memory
3) Hug well