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.