I was recently directed to an article all about parenting and the Carpe Diem message many of us have received from a sweet Grandmother while waiting in line at the store with our cantankerous brood.
I was surprised to find that in many ways I totally disagreed with the author. If you know me at all, or follow my blog, you will know that I’m a realist. I write about the hard parts of parenting. I am brutally honest about the chaos of raising children. I don’t sugar coat, I don’t pretend it is all wonderful. And yet, I find myself agreeing with the Carpe Diem message of the sweet Grandma.
Perhaps my problem is that my definition of Carpe Diem allows for a bad day, or a bad week, or even a bad month.
Or maybe, it’s just a little life experience that has me nodding my head. Because children DO grow up so very quickly. Every moment is not awesome, but it is.
Let me explain. This last summer, my sweet friend died. All of a sudden. Out of the blue. Gone. Maybe you can Carpe Diem in heaven, I don’t know. But I know that if she had somehow lived, she would have Carpe’d the crap out of every single Diem she had.
It doesn’t make cleaning up puke any more glorious, or the laundry less tedious. Carpe Diem doesn’t mean life is beautiful and grand every second of every day. It means that you appreciate it. Appreciate snuggling with your sick child. Be grateful you can.
Because what if one day, you suddenly couldn’t? What if you no longer had the choice? What if there was no more Diem to Carpe?
And even if you live to a ripe old age, your children will soon be grown and gone. The babies that drive you crazy all day long will no longer need you. Their noise and mess and fighting will be replaced with an occasional phone call and visits.
Counting down the hours until bedtime or until Dad returns home will be replaced with a countdown until you see your kids and grandkids again.
Time will always pass, it is what you choose to do with it and the attitude you do it with that makes the difference in the long run.
Maybe, just maybe, Grandma knows something I haven’t lived long enough to fully understand.
Carpe Diem? Maybe I will.
We went whale watching for the first time on our vacation. It. Was. Awesome.
Absolutely amazing. My older kids were so “tired” that they laid around the boat most of the time, not watching whales. (Little turkey butts.) Some day they will be sad that they were so “tired”. But the sunshine was wonderful. And the best thing about taking pictures is that just by looking at them, I can almost feel the sun on my back and the sand in my toes.
For more Wordless Wednesdays, visit Live and Love Out Loud, Parenting by Dummies, Dagmar’s Momsense and Kiddothings.
We just returned from a fabulous vacation! I have suitcases and stuff coming out my ears and a very busy week ahead, but I thought I would take a moment to make a list. I’m a pretty laid back parent, but there are still a few things that drive me absolutely batty on vacation.
10 Vacation things that give me anxiety
1. Waiting in long lines with squirmy children.
2. Said squirmy children finding random items on the very dirty ground and putting said item in mouth.
3. Walking through Mexico with my very blonde children.
4. Convincing my children to behave at dinner during formal night on the cruise. And no, spearing your fruit with your umbrella toothpick and dipping it in your water glass does NOT constitute behaving.
5. Children touching my nicely packed suitcases. It took me days to pack them that way and they have no reverence. They just plow right through them with no thoughts as to how I will put it all back together. Sigh.
6. Infant eating sand. Ewwww!
7. Little hands touching a random, but very giant, lizard in Mexico. It had me digging through my bag for hand sanitizer.
8. 10 hours trapped in a vehicle with 7 children. Good times, people, good times.
9. People puking directly in front of me from sea sickness on a rocky boat (NOT the cruise ship). My goal was to not look directly at it.
10. Helping small children and myself on and off a small boat and either onto the shore or onto the cruise ship. I could just picture a child overboard.
Despite the fact that there are things that cause me anxiety, it was a truly lovely vacation and I want to go back. Right. Now. Instead, I get to unpack. You are all jealous, I’m sure. I have some amazing Mayhem Management posts planned for traveling with your children. I’m super excited about that! And the pictures…I have Wordless Wednesday posts for MONTHS, I tell you! Have a truly lovely Monday and a fabulous week!
It’s 1990. I am in the throes of adolescent insecurity. The movie arachnophobia has recently come out and I’ve seen it with my friends. Despite my complete and utter disgust for spiders, I saw that blasted movie. And I spent the next several days seeing and feeling spiders everywhere I went. There was one particular scene that haunted me. A shower scene. A poor woman was showering happily when out of nowhere, spiders began invading.
Naked, unarmed and attacked by killer spiders? Ummm, no thank you.
I lived in the basement of our townhouse with my sister. That wasn’t helping my current fear of spiders. I kept seeing them, screaming and squishing them. They may have been tiny, but I could swear they were multiplying right before my eyes.
One morning at the height of my fear, I was showering with the radio turned up loudly. A loud radio would surely scare away the spiders. My parents weren’t home and that was only serving to increase my paranoia. What if there was a spider and I was all alone? As I am rinsing my hair, still arguing with myself about the possibility of a spider, I turn around and there. It. Was. A humongous spider on the wall of the shower.
So I did what any teenage girl with an irrational fear would do. I screamed.
I slid out the opposite side of the shower, turned off the water and stood trembling and dripping all over the bathroom floor. Shampoo ran down my back and tears sprang to my eyes. I was naked. I was unarmed. I stared that spider down, gathered my senses and realized that the first thing I needed to do was finish my shower. So I gathered myself and ran upstairs to my parent’s shower.
Where my sister was during all of this, I’m really not sure.
I am once again rinsing my hair, trying desperately to convince myself that the spider in the basement shower couldn’t possibly travel fast enough to come attack me two floors up. I turn and see the shower curtain move. And then it moves again and then SOMETHING is crawling across the wall of the shower. I start screaming and crying irrationally.
And then my brain realizes that it isn’t a spider, but my little sister’s hand crawling slowly across the shower wall.
I started screaming at my sister instead. She stood there and laughed.
I have a vague recollection of slamming various doors and not speaking to her for a week, but that’s really just speculation. I mostly tried to block the entire thing from my mind. Blasted sister.
This week’s prompt was, “Describe a time you felt startled.”
This week, we fans of making lists were challenged to make a list of our top 10 most strange/funny etc. jobs we have held in our lives. Sadly, some of us haven’t held 10 jobs. And even if I had ten, I’m not sure I remember what they are. So I present to you the Top Ten Jobs of bein’ a mom.
10. Queen of the night. Yes, I am the queen. Pee your bed at 3a.m.? I’m your gal. Can’t sleep, or have a bad dream? You can count on me. Puke, irrational fear or just a need to cuddle? Yup, you guessed it. I do all of those jobs. If I’m REAL lucky…I can do them all in the same night!
9. Boo boo kisser. I thought the kissing of boo boo’s was for sissies, but it’s actually a very important skill. And if you get it wrong, your child will point out that you missed the actual spot where the boo boo occurred. I have become so efficient of a boo boo kisser, that I have even had to use my skills on OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN! Shocking, I know.
8. Poop master. I am master. I can efficiently, and without puking, clean up human, turtle, and cat feces. I have dabbled in dog, bird and fish poop as well, but they are not areas of expertise.
7. Laundress. I can clean me some clothes, yes I can. If you are REAL lucky, I will even return it to your closet sometime before next month. Now, don’t go gettin’ all crazy and ask for an iron. You might just have to find yourself a new laundry maid if you do that!
6. All knowing eye. This job requires quite a bit of skill. You must always know where everyone in the family leaves their crap. You must be able to recall this information at the drop of a hat. It also comes in handy when children are in another room and you know they are being naughty. You can impress them with your skills by yelling at them to stop drawing on the wall even if you are not in the same room. They will learn to fear the all knowing eye, and develop a healthy respect for you as well.
5. Encyclopedia. This particular job takes years to develop and requires constant continual learning programs. Google will be your friend and by the time your youngest comes around, he/she will be in awe of your knowledge. Either that, or you can refer them to the eldest child who will inevitably know more than you do anyway.
4. Big fat meanie. This one is a bit self explanatory. Any time you yell something like, “Stop using the couch cushions to build your fort!”, you may consider yourself a Big Fat Meanie and therefore proficient at this particular job.
3. Taxi-driver. Your time in the car is no longer your own. Driving children where they need to be and not forgetting to pick them up will become your newest skill. And to those who say to enjoy this time with your children, I say, YOU enjoy this time with my children. Let me know how it goes.
2. Entertainer. At any point, a child can come up to you and request entertainment. You must be a never-ending supply of ideas and a constant source of fun, innovative and exciting things to do. You must be willing to be crawled on, and play Candy Land ad naseum.
1. Health inspector. You must learn to pinpoint anything that requires more than a kiss from the boo boo kisser. You must be willing to inspect any and all orifices of your children and/or your spouse. You must have a strong stomach and learn CPR as well as the symptoms for ear infections and concussions.
And that, my friends, is how we do it. Grasshopper out.
This is a story that only became funny on the re-telling of it, because at the time, it really wasn’t funny. At. All. The passage of time helps too.
Thanksgiving Day 2011
It was one of those days that when people asked me how my Thanksgiving was, I just answered that it was fine because the truth was ugly.
And I didn’t even host dinner.
But the morning started with me attempting to make a green bean casserole from a recipe I had never used before. Me + anything kitchen= mess and stress. But I was determined to clear my name in the family as the one who always brings brownies from a box.
So I was making my fancy casserole (which was amaaazzing, by the by) but the hubs determined that I hadn’t planned for enough people. You see, he is the second oldest of 9 children (and you thought I had a lot of kiddos) and there are a LOT of people at family gatherings.
So we were throwing together a third casserole while the kids dressed and found shoes and whatever other paraphernalia they thought they needed to take with them. The hubs declares it is T minus 10 minutes and I am only showered, but I hadn’t done my makeup or hair yet.
The next 10 minutes were a blur of chaos. Truly.
We manage to arrive at Grandma’s house in one piece and the hubs declares that he is leaving for the gym. Which I was mostly fine with. You know, I was FINE.
About five minutes after he leaves, baby boy has a massive blowout. I had nothing for him to wear and no wet wipes. I had to borrow from my sister-in-law who was thankfully more prepared than I was. I had, however, thought to bring several changes of clothes for Miss E who was newly potty trained.
Just in case.
She spent the day peeing on everything I brought.
The next two hours were spent wrangling children and waiting patiently for dinner and for my husband to return. Then dinner starts and my husband is nowhere to be found. Everyone spends the first half of dinner asking me where the hubs is.
But it was FINE.
He finally arrives, but only AFTER I had managed to fill the children’s plates. He asks me if I need any help, then he says he is off to shower.
I said, OK, FINE.
Yeah, like that.
The actual food was yummy. Best part of the day. My casserole was actually good enough that people asked for the recipe. From me. I’m not sure that has ever happened.
After that there was wrangling of a grumpy infant who wouldn’t nap and a lot more pee. By the evening, I was so ready to leave. I was just done.
Herculean task is the only phrase I can think of to describe getting 7 children into the van to go home. It seriously takes forever. But we were finally on the road. Everyone was safely tucked into their seat belts and I was gradually liking my husband again.
It is important to note that it is usually only a 35 minute drive to our house.
So we are driving along and all of a sudden Miss L says, “Miss K, are you choking? What are you choking on?”
I sit up and turn around as Miss L says again, “Miss K are you choking? Answer me!”
I leap over seats (I was wearing my nice black suede boots in case you were wondering) and reach Miss K who is holding onto her neck. I shove her forward a little and smack her on the back. I lean back to look at her face.
By now, I’m yelling. “Are you choking?” I couldn’t tell.
She finally says, “My neck feels funny.” Obviously not choking.
I relax a little, but I am still standing over her. I pat her back once more and as I am leaning away from her, she hurls. All. Over. Me.
Down my pants, across my boots, all over the floor, all over the door of the van. I am talking everywhere.
And I said, “Oh SH*&^>!!” It was a totally appropriate use of that word.
Just as all this was happening, we had come upon slowed traffic on the freeway. Shortly after Miss K hurled, we were full-on stopped. On the freeway. Covered in puke. With other children now proclaiming that it smelled and they were no longer feeling so good themselves.
And I had no wet wipes.
So I used my sling, extra blankets and kleenex to attempt to clean up the mess a little. I have at least learned enough over the years to always have extra plastic bags in the car. She hurled in three more of them.
I dripped some pumpkin smelling hand sanitizer on my pants and over the puke in the back seat. It masked the smell for a minute and then it just smelled like pumpkin-handsanitizing-puke.
We rolled the windows down. I think it was 28 degrees outside.
When we finally pulled into the driveway of our home, we had been on the road for a whopping 1 1/2 hours. The majority of which was spent breathing through our mouths and trying not to freeze to death.
I ended my Thanksgiving with a major clean-up and a shower.
Like I said, Thanksgiving was FINE, dammit.
A couple of people must have been good last year, cuz’ Santa brought them a whole bunch of stuff!
Yup. Those were some happy kids. Now if it would only NOT be winter so I could utilize their new toys a little more.
For more Wordless Wednesdays, visit Live and Love Out Loud, Parenting by Dummies, Dagmar’s Momsense and Kiddothings.
So, I had this New Year’s post all ready to go. It was all serious and reflective and stuff. And then I never managed to edit it and publish it. I am bleary eyed, this Monday morning, and really only half awake. So instead of being reflective, I think I will share with you some New Year’s Resolutions I will NEVER keep, cuz’ I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, people.
1. Kick the Pepsi habit, once and for all.
2. Go to bed at a decent time.
3. Have a clean van for more than 1.2 seconds.
4. Watch less TV.
5. Wake up before the children and accomplish piles of stuff.
6. Be healthy always.
7. Stop eating candy.
8. Spend less time online.
9. Clean, clean, clean all day.
10. Save oodles of money.
See, how easy was that? Look at all those fabulous things that I SHOULD do that I know deep in my heart I WON’T do. New Year’s Resolutions, pshaw! Now I must go do the things I know I will do, like torture my children by making them help me clean up the messes they made. Good times, people, good times.
I lay in bed on Christmas morning listening to my children. They are downstairs joyously going through their stockings.
“What time is it?” One of them asks.
“Is it time to wake up Mom and Dad yet?” Someone else proclaims.
“I think it’s like 8 o’clock.”
“No way, the clock in the kitchen says 6:40. It’s gonna be like forever before we can wake them up.”
I giggle to myself. I have been listening to them for at least 20 minutes. Their happy chatter and delighted proclamations had been the best way to wake up.
I sit up in bed and my husband asks if we should put them out of their misery. I smile and say that we should. They aren’t aloud to touch any of the presents until we are both up and we had declared that they weren’t to wake us until 7a.m. We both stretch and stumble our sleepy selves downstairs. I am immediately overtaken with the children showing me the treasures from their stockings.
Dad shows them the picture he “took” catching Santa in the act.
“You can’t see his face.”
“That’s actually pretty cool.”
“Wow, Dad, did Santa see you?”
I spend the next couple of hours in mass chaos as 7 children open gifts. I assemble and cut tags off of presents. I dig wrapping paper out of Baby Boy’s mouth repeatedly. I snap a few pictures, but mostly I watch. I watch my children be happy. I watch them help each other. I watch them bask in the day.
And I have joy. So much joy in my posterity. At one point, I lean over to my husband and say, “Can you believe that all this is our fault?”
He just smiles.
Ways to avoid Armageddon from an always moving mom to Seven
Toy Room Organization
Ahhhh, the toy room. If your kids are anything like mine, your toys spend most of their time looking something like this:
Let’s play I Spy. I spy a baby’s head!
I determined long ago, that the point of organizing the toy room was not so that it would always look nice, but rather that everything had a specific place it belonged. Keeping a toy room clean is rather like shoveling in a snowstorm. But if all of the toys have a home, then it is possible to clean it back up.
When we first had kids, we had this nice wooden toy box. It had a hinged lid and looked so nice. And then the children did to it what children do. They dumped out the toys and used the toy box for a hiding place…or a fort…or a hiding place. It’s no big surprise that it eventually broke. Now we use a plastic storage bin for our toy box.
I also like to group other toys into smaller bins so that the kids don’t have to dig through the big toy box for things they play with most often. We have a Barbie bin, a car bin, a blocks bin and a little people bin.
Having four girls requires a lot of dress ups. I mean A LOT. For a long time I used a plastic bin for the dress ups too, but I discovered that the kids always dumped it because whatever they were looking for was nearly always in the bottom. So I bought a bunch of 3M hooks and created a wall where I could hang their dresses and the girls could more easily find what they were looking for.
I also created an area where their hats, purses (again with 3M hooks), and princess shoes could live. I used an old bedside table for their hats, gloves and shoes to live. It doesn’t always look the neatest, but it works!
And last, but not least, is the kitchen area. We got Miss E a bunch of food for the kitchen for Christmas and I will be buying a bin to store it in. But for now, everything mostly fits in the kitchen. I also used a 3M hook for our little aprons. (Love those things!)
And that is my solution to controlling the mayhem in the toy room.
What is your solution to the toy mess?
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The gang! A ~ 12 year old boy. A great big brother!
L ~ 10 year old girl. My little gymnast.
M ~8 year old boy. Such a goofball!
K ~ 6 year old girl. Such a drama queen!
O ~ 4 year old girl. She's a holy terror, I tell ya!
E ~ 2 year old darling girl.
Baby boy ~ 5 months old.
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Contact Me staceysmotheringmoments (at) hotmail (dot) com
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