When you just gotta dance...

September is halfway over, which means we are definitely “back to our regularly scheduled programming” – i.e. school, piano, dance, chaos. If someone had told me a few years ago that I was going to find myself one day becoming a dance mom I would have thought they were nuts. When my son came to me and asked if he could take a tap class I never would have imagined that opening that door would be like opening up a whole new reality for us. Tap, jazz, ballet, hip-hop - dance has become a massive part of our lives. We are at the studio almost every day - back and forth, often with all my wild kids in tow - and although there are days when it is overwhelming, I couldn’t imagine it not being our life.

            I’ve had a few people tell me they think I’m crazy, or wonder why on earth I do it. Doesn’t it seem like maybe it’s a bit too much? Here’s the thing- my son doesn’t just dance because it’s a fun after school activity, he dances because he MUST. He HAS to dance; it’s a part of his soul. He told me once that when he’s dancing, sometimes he feels so exhausted and even frustrated, but even then it makes his heart happy. He doesn’t walk, he dances- down the street, through the grocery store, around the house, on the playground. So when people try to tell me that maybe I should make him scale back so that my life is “easier” I sort of just smile and shrug it off, because I know that, although they are well intentioned, they just don’t get it.

            I never had anything that I loved so much, was so passionate about, at such a young age, and I often wonder what it would have been like if I had. Maybe I would have felt less lonely as a kid. Not that I was a loner. I had friends, I participated in some after school activities, but I never really felt like I fit anywhere. I never found that place and space that was mine. I always felt a bit awkward and alone. I never had that “thing” that made me excited about life. That is what dance is to my boy. Dance is his heart. He has friends in school, and he fits in for the most part, but when he’s at the studio he’s more himself. When he’s there he’s with his people, his tribe. There he can be the boy, that instead of sitting in front of the big screen TV to watch hockey or basketball, he’s sitting (or often standing and dancing) in front of the TV watching “West Side Story”- and its not weird for him to be that boy.

            Also, the truth is that he isn’t the only one that has found a tribe through dance: I have too. We have a dance family now. Its not just the other kids that he dances with; its their parents, siblings, even grandparents, that are all a part of something- this crazy dance life that is sometimes chaotic and often a lot of work, but so incredibly worth it.

            Sometimes I watch him up on the stage and its hard not to cry; because I’m proud of him for how hard he works, for his determination, for the sweat and sometimes tears he puts into it, but most of all because I know that in that moment he feels so incredibly alive. You know that saying “too much of a good thing”? Well, its total crap. There’s no such thing. And that feeling, that awesome “good thing” feeling that he gets when he dances, I hope he always has that in his life, whether its through dance or one day through something else, there’s never too much of it. And I will always want to support him in finding it.

Even if it means schlepping all my kids back and forth to the dance studio every day.  

When you decide maybe you need to cut yourself some slack...

Today I made a difficult decision. I decided to cut something out of my life in an attempt to try and make things a bit less stressful. I decided to let go of something not because I really want to but because I feel I have to in order to stay sane. Today I decided to quit cloth diapering. I tried to make it work but I just couldn’t. My poor toddler has crazy sensitive skin and no matter what I tried he always ended up with nasty rashes in cloth. And my baby finally got big enough to use the diapers I have and it turns out she hates them. Like, really hates them. We’re talking crying, fussy, miserable mess because no matter how often I change her, the minute she’s wet she feels it, and she really hates feeling wet. Plus, the fact is that cloth diapers are more work. Eco-friendly? Yes. Economical? Yes. Easier? No. Sure, modern cloth diapering has come a long way, but lets not kid ourselves, until those diapers start to magically wash themselves, they’re still more work. Frankly, with four kids-two in diapers, I’m barely keeping it together and something has just got to give. However, the worst part in all of this is the fact that I feel so guilty for quitting. I hate that. I hate how I feel like I wasn’t “mom” enough to hack it. Its ridiculous to feel this way, and I know the only one making me feel this way is myself, but I still feel it.

            There’s the problem really: modern parenting is so filled with guilt. That’s not to say that parents in the past didn’t deal with feelings of guilt or inadequacy. I think those feeling are as ancient as you can get, but it seems like these days its all so in your face and hard to escape. I blame the internet; social media- Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest (bloody hell, definitely Pinterest!). Not to mention the plethora of parenting books, blogs, websites- there’s plenty of resources out there that will try to tell you how to parent- and point out everything you are doing wrong. I try to avoid all the “advice” and just do what I think is right, but for some reason doing so still doesn’t necessarily negate the guilt of knowing someone else is probably doing it all “better” than me. I know I’m my own worst critic, and I’m really starting to piss myself off with all the inner judgement. The constant internal dialogue and second guessing is exhausting. And the worst part of all of this is having to try and put on the happy face and pretend that parenting is the most blissful thing in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. I wouldn’t trade being their mom for anything in the world. And even if I could go back and change things, knowing how hard it was going to be, I wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean that it’s all rainbows and daisies and happiness galore.

            Let’s be honest, there are moments, hours, even days when this feels like the most miserable job in the world. Worthwhile, definitely, but often the most worthwhile things are also the most difficult. Adding the guilt on top of all the difficulty is what becomes so soul crushing. So, I’d like to say that I’m not going to feel guilty anymore, but I know that’s totally unrealistic. However, I’d like to try and maybe ease up on the guilt a bit, and I think one way to do that is through brutal honesty. Feeling like you need to hide your parenting flaws is where the guilt comes from, and a lot of the things I feel guilty for are totally ridiculous.

            For example: I didn’t throw my kid a 1^st birthday party this past year. I just couldn’t handle it at the time. We still had cake as a family, but there was no party, no stack of presents, and no balloons. Guess what? He didn’t know the damn difference! So why did I let myself feel so bad about it? Like not having some Pinterest worthy party to post pictures of somehow makes me a failure. Is it just me, or do kid’s birthday parties seem to have gotten a lot more elaborate in the past few years? I don’t really remember elaborate parties like that when I was a kid. Not that I think we shouldn’t celebrate my kids’ births, but damn! Can we celebrate without stressing me out to the point that it causes me an anxiety attack?

            Or there’s the fact that my kids don’t exactly eat a perfectly healthy diet. Frankly, most days I’m just pleased that they actually eat, forget weather or not they’ve had a balance of all the food groups. Sometimes we even eat at McDonald’s! On a side note, if you want a good laugh, listen to Jim Gaffigan’s bit about McDonald’s here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YDTfEhChgw. Of course, if you’re not making homemade, organic, gourmet meals every day then you are failing your kids, or at least that seems to be what the self-righteous food snobs are telling us (I’m talking to you, Jamie Oliver! Back the hell off, man!). 

            Oh, and bathing! Since when did it become necessary to bathe your kids every night? You must have the exact bath time and bedtime routine or your kids will never learn to sleep at night! Trust me, they learn to sleep even if they don’t have the exact same routine and even if they don’t smell like soap when their heads hit the pillow. Are kids dirtier than they used to be? What happened to Saturday night baths? Unless they’ve hit puberty and BO becomes an issue, I don’t’ see why my little kids need nightly baths. Confession: my three youngest only bathe once or twice a week. I know, how disgusting! Oh the horror! Seriously, they’re not playing in the dirt all day long. They change their underwear and put on clean clothes. They wash their hands and face and brush their teeth, and if I’m really lucky I can even manage to get a brush through my girl’s hair each day. Good enough.

            Here’s the real heart of all of this: in order to be the kind of parent I want to be to my kids I have to ease up on myself. The fact is that the guilt leads to all sorts of nasty feelings, and it creates so much added stress that spills over onto my kids. Maybe I’m not doing things “perfect”. I may not stand as an example in the “how-to parent” guidelines (I might even make it in the “how-not-to” column quite often). But I think I’ve got to learn to be okay with that in order to stay sane enough to actually remain a parent. Maybe I screw up. A lot. Maybe I have days that I call a success and I totally rock it. And maybe I have days where I end up hiding in my closet, curled up on the floor, and balling my eyes out. Or as I like to call it, yesterday. It happens sometimes. Life is messy and I am often a total disaster. What can I say, sometimes shit happens.

           

            Of course, from now on it will just have to happen in a disposable diaper.

When you find yourself unexpectedly expecting...

When you find yourself suddenly and unexpectedly pregnant, you can’t help but look up articles, advice, blogs, etc. that talk about unplanned pregnancy. The thing is, the vast majority of these address unplanned pregnancy as a first pregnancy, usually under some sort of desperate circumstance; being too young, being single, being financially unable to raise a child. There really isn’t much to go on when you’re married, and already have three kids. It seems as if the idea of unexpected pregnancy for someone that already has kids is not meant to be a big deal. You’ve already got three, what’s one more? And maybe for some that is how it feels, but what if it isn’t?

The honest truth: when I saw the positive pregnancy sign on that pee stick I bawled my eyes out. I wept on the bathroom floor, while my three kids were sitting, eating lunch and “Dora the Explorer” was playing on the TV. I was paralyzed. I kept telling myself I needed to get up and take care of my kids, and all I could do was lay, glued to cold floor, and sob.

After the crying stopped, after I went about the rest of my day trying to act normal, and after the kids were asleep, I sat on my bed feeling like the most wretched human being on the planet. How awful was I? How ungrateful? So many people who so desperately want to have a child and can’t, and here I am crying about having a fourth? I wish I could say those feeling somehow made me feel better about the situation, but really it just made me feel guilty on top of all the other overwhelming feelings that were swirling inside me.

Let me be clear, it isn’t that I resent my unborn child. I’m sure that I will love her just as much as I love my other children. However, I totally resent being pregnant. I resent the months and months of endless nausea and barfing. I resent the agonizing pain in my joints because my body really doesn’t like having to expand to accommodate a growing human. I resent the headaches, the heartburn, the restless legs keeping me up at night. But above all of this, I resent the fact that I am now facing the possibility of going through postpartum depression. Again.

After both my first and second children I had postpartum, I was incredibly lucky to avoid it with my third. Now though, I am haunted by the fact that it could happen again. When baby number three was about six months I remember feeling this incredible feeling of relief, knowing that I had somehow managed to avoid it- especially since I had thought at the time that I was done having babies, so there was zero chance of having to go through the horror again. I always knew postpartum depression was a high possibility for me because I have a depressive mood disorder. I was totally unprepared for how much more difficult, more terrifying, and more debilitating postpartum would be in comparison to my “usual” depression. Mostly I think it was because it was no longer just about me, it involved another person- this tiny, innocent, little human being, that I was responsible for bringing into the world in the first place, was tangled up in this convoluted web of emotions that were so overpowering I was incapable of saving myself, let alone them.

When you’re someone with a history of depression, and especially postpartum depression, getting pregnant feels a bit like playing Russian Roulette. Even if you do everything to try and avoid it, even if you take all the precautions, there’s no guarantee that you won’t find yourself staring down the barrel of that gun and wincing as the trigger is pulled.

Of course, these are things you’re not supposed to talk about. Having a baby is supposed to be this happy, ecstatic time in your life. People expect you to be glowing, excitedly picking out names, planning the nursery, nesting, and all that goes along with it. It’s hard for some to understand that the fact that I’m scrubbing my house isn’t in anticipation of my new arrival, but because I clean and organize when I’m stressed, and right now I am totally losing my shit. I started decorating for Christmas early this year, not because I just couldn’t wait to set up the tree, but because I desperately needed to distract myself from how wretchedly afraid I feel these days. I thought the twinkly lights would cheer me up a bit. Maybe gallons of eggnog and pulling out the Christmas movies would take my mind of off things. But not even Clark Griswold has been able to numb the fear.

So here I am, fully admitting it, maybe even trying to embrace it. I’ve got a great husband, three amazing kids, and a beautiful home… and I am pregnant. I’m also a little angry, totally overwhelmed, and completely and utterly terrified. How’s that for brutal honestly?

Oh, and my feet are swollen- which isn’t really the main issue, but it sure as hell makes putting on shoes miserable, so I’m annoyed as well.

When you realize you've given into mommy-martyrdom... and you don't like it.

   I have three wonderful children. I am totally in love with my kids. I feel so blessed that I get to be their momma. And I also resent the hell out of the fact that my life now revolves around them. 

   There.  I said it. I am a bad mother.

I wasn’t ever going to be this woman. I wasn’t going to be a mommy-martyr. I had dreams once. Okay, so my “dreams” tended to be a bit vague, but I knew there were things I wanted for myself. Not because they were necessary, or expected, but just because it was what I wanted. Imagine the audacity!

   I was in a school a few years ago. I genuinely had no clue where I was planning on going with it all; which, of course, is the first thing anybody asks you when they find out you’re in school. “So, what are you planning on doing with your degree?” Because, you know, the only point of education is to get a career that makes lots of money, right? It’s not like education has any sort of intrinsic value on its own. I am one of those totally geeky people that genuinely likes learning. I like school. I crave knowledge. Sit me in a lecture hall, or place me in a seminar and educate me, man!

   Now, when there was only one kiddo, school was fairly manageable. He was in a great daycare, which made things so much easier. One was easy to manage. When the second came along and I tried to make it work I totally and completely failed. It was just too damn hard. You would think when kids are older it would be easier. My oldest was in school, shouldn’t that make things less stressful? Nope.  When they get older they start having a schedule you have to work around. They’ve got places they need to be and you have to get them there. It sucks having to pass on taking a class you really want to take, or even need to take, because it conflicts with your kid’s school schedule. Sure, there’s after school programs, but add that cost onto tuition, books, daycare. Holy shit! Not to mention how hard it is to come home and try to read two hundred pages each night and write essay upon essay when you have kids to feed, a house to clean, laundry to wash… you get the picture.

   So, I decided to “take a break” from school. I told myself it was just a short hiatus until things became more manageable. Of course, I then added another kid into the mix, so it then became an extended hiatus. Now I am beginning to feel as if I will never go back. Things aren’t getting less chaotic, if anything they are only getting more so the older my kids get. Seriously, folks, babies and toddlers lead much simpler lives than older kids. I tell myself I’m okay with it. This was my choice, after all. No one made me give up school. I decided it was too much. I decided. And I resent the hell out of that decision.

   Every start of a new semester I spend about a week seriously depressed. But no matter how sad I am, I can’t justify going back right now. It still would not work. Not to mention that I feel guilty for being there if there’s not some distinct end game I’m working towards. It’s not enough to just be going to school because you want to be, you have to have some illustrious career at the end of it to justify what you’re doing. 

   I am a stay-at-home mom. I am so by choice. I don’t think it is exactly my first choice though. It is sort of the only realistic option at this point. I can’t be a student, the full-time parent, and the housekeeper all at once. I couldn’t hack it. Which makes me feel like a total loser because there are so many parents who do. There are lots of people who go to school and work and have kids and they manage to do it all. I couldn’t. I hate that I have to admit that. I tried. I failed. I wanted to, but the stress of trying to do it all was leading to me having anxiety attacks three times a day and losing an insane amount of weight due to stress (twenty-five pounds in two months is not healthy!).

   So here I am, succumbed to mommy-martyrdom. Most days I am just fine. I really do love being with my kids. I love that my being home full-time allows them to do things that if I were not home would be impossible. Here’s the thing though - the thing that nobody really tells you or that you don’t fully understand until you’ve been there: being a stay-at-home parent is painfully lonely. Having conversations with a toddler all day can really start to make you lose your mind. Not having time for a social life kind of sucks. Although, I’m not exactly the most social person anyways- people sort of annoy me- but still, it would be nice to know I could be sociable if I wanted to be.

   I get a little sad every time I drive by the university (which is several times a day because I live down the road and there is no way to avoid it). I get into these sort of funks where I feel the need to distract myself from all this crap, so I get really, really absorbed in a book. Any readers out there will know what I’m talking about. You get so caught up in a story that you have to stay up until three a.m. and just read one more chapter. You dream about it, you think about it all day, you are totally lost in another world, another existence. Yep. Book binges are my escape. However, after the binge ends and the story is over there’s sort of this sad empty feeling afterwards. You feel a little lost in your own world. That’s when the effects of mommy-martyrdom are the hardest.

   Wait a second; this isn’t the life I ordered! Oh wait, it is. I just forgot what it looked like.

An apology for my lack of social enthusiasm... although I'm really not that sorry.

            These days I find that I am a little bit anti-social. Okay, I’m completely anti-social. I have no desire to engage in small talk with people. I don’t have the patience to socialize. Patience is something I struggle with- patience with myself, patience with my kids, patience with people in general. It’s sort of a big problem. This lack of patience is greatly increased by sleep deprivation.

            Now, to all you parents out there who have babies who sleep well at night, this is something you may not fully grasp.

Oh, and I hate you.

Okay, I don’t actually hate you. I am fully aware that it is not your fault that none of my babies have been sound sleepers. It’s no one’s fault, in fact. Each kid comes wired a bit differently. Mine don’t seem to be wired for deep sleep, at least not until they are about two years old, then things start to click and nights become much more restful. 

            So, I don’t hate you parents with kids that sleep, but I also don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to hear about how your baby was sleeping six hours by the time they were three months old. This sort of information sort of makes me want to flip you the bird and then avoid any further contact with you. This may seem like a bit of an overreaction, but lack of sleep tends to bring that out in people. Oh, and please don't try and tell me all your tricks and methods for how you get your babies to sleep. Trust me, I've heard it all, read it all, and tried a lot of it (letting them "cry it out" is not an option- but let's not get into that debate).

            Most evenings I get in bed hoping that I will be blessed with at least a three hour stretch- not several three hour stretches through the night, just one. Because if my kid does happen to have a longer stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night that is all I get, after that it’s short little dozes for the rest of the night. If I get three hours of sleep it is a good night. Three hours. How insane is that?

            Now, if you happen to be a light sleeper, which I am, then it is even more problematic. Every movement, every whimper, a little snort or snore, and I find myself awake. So, basically I am constantly being woken up. And it’s not just the baby.

If my seven year old starts talking in his sleep, in his room, I hear it.

If my husband starts to snore, I’m awake.

My two-year old starts to stir in her room, and I know she’s about to wake up and say she has to pee, so I am awake. 

Basically it’s just one giant suck-fest of no sleep for this momma.

            Of course, it is totally all worth it in the long run. I wouldn’t trade my kids for all the sleep in the world (okay, some days I might feel otherwise). However, this exhaustion completely throws any shred of patience I used to have out the window. Whatever little bit I can muster has to be used on my children, so that I don’t find myself suddenly turning into Mommie Dearest.  So, I have no patience for other people. It is the main cause of my anti-social attitude. I leave the house when it is necessary. I socialize when I must. As for the idea of spending time with other people for enjoyment -forget it! I find it draining. Whatever energy I am able to gather is very precious; too precious to spend on anyone other than my family.

Sorry.

(But not really)

When you realize you don't want it all...

            Why is it that I feel guilty for being in my pajamas all day? Honestly, I don’t live this way every single day, but today was just one of those days. It has been raining, my knees are killing me (that’s what I get for pulling a giant pile of weeds out of the front yard!), and I’m trying to ward off an impending migraine. So, I stayed in my pajamas, I didn’t do any housework, and didn’t do any office work. I watched movies with the kids, read books, and drank a lot of tea. And now it’s evening and I feel guilty. I did not accomplish anything today. I was not productive. I didn’t “earn my keep” so to speak.

            There’s this strange societal expectation to be busy all the time. It’s as if we assume that life must be full of things to do or it isn’t worthwhile. It seems like it is some sort of competition to see whose life is the most “productive”. Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me?

            I think that it can be even worse if you are a stay-at-home parent. I suppose it stems from this need to be defensive about what we do all day. You know that whole joke about sitting around all day eating bon-bons and watching soap operas - if we make ourselves crazy with things to accomplish then we prove the stereotype wrong. Heaven forbid we admit that we need a day off once in a while! Wouldn’t it be nice if labour laws applied to stay-at-home parents?

            Of course, I think my feelings of guilt are worsened by the fact that my husband works 80 hours a week. I’ve always had this insecurity about our relationship - I’m paranoid that I’m somehow the “lesser” partner. However, I’m starting to realize that I probably work as many hours as he does, it’s just a different sort of work. I don’t make money staying home with the kids so somehow it seems like my working hours are less valid. None of how I am feeling is in any way due to my husband. He has never undermined what I do each day, it is all coming from myself.

            Somewhere along the way I got it in my head that being a woman in the modern world meant that you had to be in a constant state of frenzy. You know how they say that now we can “have it all”? Well, that seems like a very vague description to me. All what? There could be dozens of definitions of what “all” really is. Many seem to think it means you can have kids, marriage, and a career – no need to give up anything. Not to mention spending time at the gym, participating in PTA meetings, having your kids in every activity possible, a house full of Pinterest worthy DIY projects… you get my point. It seems to me that “having it all” somehow means not having enough time to enjoy what you have. Maybe I don’t really want to have it all, at least not by that definition.  So why do I still feel like I am somehow not living up to my fullest potential if I don’t do all these things?

            I guess it is going to take some time and practice before I can spend a day in yoga pants with no make-up on and not feel like I’m a slacker.

When I grow up...

I have to admit, I sort of suck at this blogging thing. I think the main reason is that the only chance I have to sit down at the computer and type away is after the kids are in bed, and by then my brain doesn't want to function anymore. Of course, that's just making excuses for myself and I really should get out of that habit. So, I may just need to force myself to stay up a little longer and jot down some of my thoughts. That means things are going to be brief, because I am tired and my pillow is calling me. 

    Children are often asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Well, I’m twenty-seven and I’m still trying to figure that out. My son is six years old and he wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up, or some days he will say that he wants to become Gandalf when he grows up. He has all sorts of wide-eyed dreams that many more “practical” persons would deem unrealistic. Okay, so the Gandalf dream is probably not going to happen, but the archaeology thing is a definite possibility. The point is, he is too young to have been tainted by the world. He knows what he wants, and to him it is not only entirely possible but also completely probable. I can vaguely remember what that felt like. I remember a time when what I wanted out of life what just that - what I WANTED. It had nothing to do with what other people expected, or what was logical, or what was the norm. Once upon a time dreams were real… until they weren’t anymore. We often refer to this as “growing up”, which makes me wonder: What the hell is so great about being a grown-up anyway? Sometimes I look at myself and I realize that there is a part of me that has disappeared, died even. Perhaps there should have been a funeral, because I feel as if I am mourning – grieving that part of myself that genuinely believed I could achieve the things I wanted. Listening to my son talk about all the things he wants to do makes me feel both incredibly excited and incredibly sad. I am excited for him because I want him to have those experiences he wants to have, and I believe it is entirely possible because I haven’t given up on his dreams. However, the sad part is that I am aware that I seem to have given up on mine. I truly believe that the most effective way to teach your children is by example, which is terrifying. How do I teach him to go after what he wants when I didn’t? Of course, the things I want have changed over the years because I’ve changed, but I still don’t find myself really chasing after what I want. I have become comfortable with letting things pass me by. I am accustomed to dreaming, waking up, and then forgetting what it was I had dreamt about. So, as I slowly try and allow myself to hang onto dreams again perhaps I may start to figure out what it is I want to be when I grow up. Right now the best answer I can give is this:

                                    I think when I grow up I want to be more like my son.