Category Archives: Momma Needs a minute…

this is for me

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this is a reminder. it’s a reminder that this space is for me.

i know many of the people who are a part of my non-internet based life are not supportive of this blog and my efforts in writing it. and that is ok. because this is a reminder that i don’t write this blog or keep this space for them. i keep this blog for me.

this may be the only place in my life over which i have complete control. i can decide what it should look like. i can decide what to share. i decide what i want to remember and i can put an extended piece of myself into these pages. i have an outlet for creativity and thought in the midst of a life that feels like it’s comprised mostly by mundane house chores and fulfilling the wants and needs of tiny people. i like writing this blog. and i’ve fortunately been brought up in such a way as to know that if i like doing something then i can go ahead and keep on doing it.

i realize how silly it is to go through life taking selfies of outfits and millions of pictures of my daughter. but i don’t really care! because the truth is that if i didn’t take any pictures of me then no one else would. it’s really easy to feel invisible in your own life as a stay-at-home mom. i don’t want to feel invisible in my own life. i’m very much an active participant. and guess what, i like myself and i want some record of how i looked and felt and what i dreamed about while folding laundry and driving to dance classes.

so, i’m going to keep on doing it. i like writing and i like sharing.  and occasionally someone in the real world tells me how much they enjoy following and yeah, that feels so freaking cool. i’m not going to lie about that. it’s a nice ego boost. but i have to remember that if they like it then that is for them. it speaks for them. not for me. if something i put down in these words reaches out and grabs something in another human then i’m not responsible for what was inside them that whole time. it’s simply a mutual appreciation. and i’m thoroughly grateful to those of you who’ve reached out over the years and expressed a mutual appreciation over some of the things i’ve put down in this space.

i’ve been going back through this blog in the past week cleaning out old posts and re-reading some of what i put here. some of it i’m not so proud or enthused about. i think that most of those times i was getting away from what the purpose of this blog is supposed to be. but there is so, so much that i’m very proud of, so much that i’m glad is here for others and for my family to maybe go through some day and remember the simply beautiful existence we were entrusted with together.

so, yeah, this is a reminder. and this reminder isn’t for you. it’s for me. it’s a reminder TO ME that this space is FOR ME.

and that makes me so completely lucky to be able to share it with other wonderful humans.

getting reconnected

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., pregnancy by

nature hike baby belly

until this past week of glorious weather i had no idea how essential being out of doors would be for me to feel connected to this pregnancy. 

being outside has always been an essential part of my well-being, i think. i remember choosing hours of play outside over television or indoor play. in my motherhood, i’ve tried to get darla outside and into the wild as much as possible. i feel more at peace outside and my brain functions differently than when i’m cooped up inside.

beginning this pregnancy at the start of this very long, harsh winter was pretty rough on me. darla was a january baby born in a slightly warmer climate so i was out and about for the first 2 trimesters with her and still pretty active during the last trimester, heck we even walked down to the Obama inauguration 2 weeks before I was due. it seemed a little more normal to have lots of activity in early pregnancy and to hunker down a bit more during the last stretch. having the opposite happen with this pregnancy has not been easy.

i don’t function so well indoors. i get a little crazed about organization and overwhelmed by how many items are in our household. i have it in my heart hopes that i’ll move to a warmer climate someday that allows for outdoor adventure year round. but let’s bring it back to the fact that this week has shifted me back into focus for preparing for this birth.

so we’ve been out every day since it’s been possible. i can say without a doubt that sunshine, fresh air and green living things are going to be quite necessary for me to bring this baby into this world. and now i’m feeling oh so happy to be having a summer baby.

mocs on walks

i’ve gotten my mocs out on walks. alone. it seems essential to my spiritual being to spend time alone in nature. i think it’s always been part of my personal faith practices to spend time alone in the wilderness, contemplating the small habitats of the tiny creatures juxtaposed to the vastness of the earth and the heavens. it’s important to my spiritual being to feel connected to it all. i just find that hard to do cooped up inside walls.

i feel it all coming together and it feels good. the reawakening of the earth is resonating deep inside me and i feel more connected now than ever before. how wonderful it was to feel this life quicken and grow inside me just as the earth started to do the same. how wonderful to feel this baby gain strength and see my belly bloom just as the blossoms appear in our world. and i can only imagine how wonderful it will feel to have life burst forth at just about the time when all life in the northern hemisphere is at its peak.

i’m so thankful that the world within me is connected to the world without me.

 

 

on this day when i didn’t like being a mom

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am i really cut out for this?

these days of struggling and tiredness mount up on one another, leaving me feeling drained and daunted by the question of whether i’m really cut out for being a mom.

i find managing a family and a household to be utterly exhausting mentally. i’m at home in my independence and keeping the family plates spinning in the air is something that leaves me feeling endlessly inadequate. my inner mountain lioness wants to slink away and reclaim my status as a solo being. this feels like a wretched place to be emotionally residing when a new life is growing inside me.

how can i facilitate some attached independence? how can i make a little space in my life just for me? how can i accomplish all that i want to do when all i have are snippets of time and endlessly interrupted thought patterns?

please know you don’t have to provide these answers. i just need to get them out there. maybe you feel the same way. maybe you’ve worked through this yourself. i’ll figure out my way. i know i will. just thank you for letting me put this out there and accepting it as is.

that was the wrong thing to say

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the past couple years of my life have really opened my eyes to just how often people, myself being my most studied person in this hypothesis, say the wrong thing.

because the problem is in the saying.

i’ve always been a loquacious being. i talk too much most of the time. it took me a really long time, about 30 years, to learn that what most people need is for someone to listen. birth work has really helped me work on this skill. i have to say that it’s improved my marriage, my ability to help women in pregnancy and it’s starting to seep into other areas of my life as well.

my confession is that i’ve been attending a support group for almost 2 years now. in a good support group a member is able to share his or her thoughts, feelings, current life troubles and other members simply listen. no one tries to solve your problems for you. no one offers you advice. no one even really comments about what you’ve shared. people simply listen. being in this environment for the past couple of years has really helped me examine how i behave as an active listener to fellow humans.

i’ve found that when i feel pulled the most to open my mouth to give the world my answers is when i need to quiet down the most. more often than not, those are the times there is something going on that i really need to hear. i just have to listen deeper.

because when someone is depressed they don’t want to hear your advice about how they should fix it. they want you to listen. in the listening you are saying “i’m sorry you’re going through this but i’ll be here for you anyway.”  when someone is sharing a past traumatic experience they don’t want you to offer your opinion on how to process that life event. they want you to listen. because by sharing and retelling their life they are slowly doing the work of healing.  what people really want is the dignity to work through something on their own with friends by their side. it’s powerful to come to realizations on one’s own. it’s more powerful to do that while a friend’s hand rests gently and quietly on your back. sometimes we don’t know all the things we know until we have to tell them to another human being.

and that’s the kind of listener i want to be. i don’t want to be the person with all the answers. i want to be the sounding board that gets to quietly observe my friends discover the answers on their own. i want to listen with my heart and not my head. my head is that busy place with thoughts criss-crossing and hurdling over one another. my heart is that quiet place. my heart is still and peaceful and sure. i want to listen with my heart. and i want that from others as well.

 

baby nook

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., pregnancy by

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this is the new view from my side of the bed. and soon there’s going to be a baby in there.

well, probably not. the baby will most likely want to hang out a little closer to me…as in on me…since that’s the way babies are programmed.

still, i like the way things look over there. all organized and ready to receive more babylike things. that cradle was mine when i was a babe and darla spent at least a handful of hours napping in there as a newborn. i think i like the nesting phase as a way of putting my world in order before it all goes to hell in a hand basket.

the nesting, re-organizing and purging are my ways of distraction, my ways of convincing myself that it’s not gonna be so bad. it’s not gonna be that bad, right? it’s all gonna be ok if i just make it look like it would be featured on apartment therapy! because all i keep hearing about is how great and easy it is to manage two children and a home and a marriage and build a career. we’re so lucky that as a society we build people up with hope and encouragement for these life transitions.

that’s sarcasm by the way.

oh well, it doesn’t really matter because soon…there’s going to be a baby in there.

i’m not afraid to show my belly and i’m not sorry

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., pregnancy by

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this post is here to tell you how wildly proud of my baby belly and mama body i am.

you have probably noticed from this blog and other social media that i’m not really one to keep it all under wraps or covered in a mu-mu. i love the way my body looks pregnant and i’m not really sorry about that. i think pregnant bellies are beautiful and i wish more of them were out there in the real world for us to see, not just slapped in advertisements to get us to buy things. because that’s the only time skin bared on a woman is acceptable right?

this post is also serving as a warning that it’s not going to stop anytime soon. for those of you who know me in real life you should know that you may, at some point, see me out and about with a whole lot more of myself out and about. this mama has mid-drift tops and she’s not afraid to wear them. warm weather is approaching and this belly has got to breathe!

if you have an opinion about that, particularly a negative one, then i first want to applaud you for being in touch with yourself and in tune with your own opinions. but secondly, i want to remind you that i do not really care about your opinion. your opinion is not my business. feel free to run the other way if you see me and my bare baby belly approaching.

because it’s out. and it will be about. and i won’t be sorry or shamed about it for one little minute.

for the days when we’re just too much alike

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., parenting apparently? by

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on very rare occasions i can talk darla into sporting matching top knots with me. on these days i hear the phrase that has followed us around for the past 4 years a little more: she looks just like you.

yes. she does. i think i’ve confessed on here before that i’m not entirely sure that she isn’t just me. that i’ve reincarnated myself before i’m even dead. the lines between where i stop and where she starts have always been blurry. as those lines are beginning to take on definition life has gotten a whole lot more complicated.

don’t get me wrong, darla has always been incredibly willful, ready to make her mark on the world from the youngest of ages and it’s something i love about her…but it makes life incredibly difficult at times.

i’ve come to the awareness that the things i don’t like about darla, the things i nag on, over-parent and try to over correct with her are really the things i don’t like about myself. i’d venture to say that’s how all relationships work but that would be digressing. what i want to convey is that it’s especially difficult to come to terms with the little person that is a mirror image of myself, not just in looks.

i have to face and own up to the fact that the things that frustrate me the most about her were put into her by me in one way or another whether it be nature or nurture. there are so many times when i do things wrong as a parent, when i handle things wrong. some days it seems that everything i do is wrong. when at the end of the day i admit that everything could have been different if i had focused on changing myself instead of changing her. i get fixated on trying to correct things in her that remind me of myself at her age because i want her experience with the world to be different. i sometimes cut her interaction with this world short by trying to force my will instead of leaving it all up to the universe to figure out.

i wish, oh i wish, i could just sit her down and tell her that i don’t have all the answers. that i don’t understand the way of the world any more than she does, that adults seeming to have the knowledge is a farce. i wish i could take her by the hand and tell her that what it’s really all about is us finding the answers together. but how can i explain such a thing to a little girl who doesn’t stop spinning in circles long enough to focus on such a discussion?

i don’t really have a conclusion for this post. all i can ask is that you send me some of your positive thoughts and energy, or a virtual back pat as i try to make progress on this area of myself. she’s the most important mirror in our house and taking a good, long look into that mirror has been taxing for me lately. i’ll need any extra support i can get.

thanks. you’re the best.

week 45

Posted in let me let me update ya, Momma Needs a minute... by

this week has been one as such that i may not even be able to find the words to compose a coherent blog post. it won’t be that much different than any of my other posts in that way.

this week has been postpartums and prenatals, meetings and date nights, work, packing, painting, early morning walks and tacos twice! i’ve gotten some extra friend time in too with lady dates and friends being willing to stop by and lend a hand at the new place. people are going to get sooooo sick of me asking for help with the new place. i even won tix to the dr. dog show last night. so, it’s been a great week but dang man, shoot.

but now i have to tell you about the most important thing that has happened to me this week: my discovery and purchase of this Fergie lipstick.

i know. i know. i’ve never been that impressed by her before but i would fight some broads over this new lipstick of mine. it was less than $2! fergie!! thank you!!!

just look at how boring those pictures look without darla girl. i can’t wait for my favorite subject to return tonight. we will frolic all weekend and then you can look forward to a special edition of weekending on monday.

speaking of weekending, i better say good-bye. sending you my best and positive energy for a great weekend. adios amigos!

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expectations

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expectations. collective sigh, right?

i could venture to say that 99% of the hurdles in my daily life are based in that title word. i have expectations about EVERYTHING. i have them about my daughter, my husband, family, friends, house, career, strangers, elected officials, products, religions, and even of you, dear reader.

however my biggest expectations are for myself. i expect myself to be a certain person, to behave in a certain way, to always look stylish, forever be young, to achieve certain things, accomplish much, fail at little. i can accomplish ten things in a day and beat myself up about the 11th thing i didn’t get done.

it’s exhausting and nonsensical.

i’ve been focusing attention and meditating about this certain area of myself for some time now and i have to admit i still don’t have many answers but what i do have is more awareness. and for that i am thankful. i am aware when i am setting myself up for failure, disappointment and resentment by creating some bar that is unattainable.

you see this is in my brain and on my heart right now because of our move and our new house. i have expectations of how i want it to look and what this move will mean and do for our family. and as i’m painting and taping off walls i can’t for the life of me decide if it’s worth it to make the space our own or if it is wasted effort spent on something superficial.

i guess i will have the answer to that when the time is right. but what i hope for is the courage to be a little gentler on myself and others. maybe one day i will be strong enough to let go of what i think things should look, feel and be like and see things just as they are.

when i’m ready, i’ll get there.

story bored

Posted in advantageous adventures, Momma Needs a minute..., Travels by

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and here’s a post where i write about something i’m really passionate about.

you may or may not have read my last life{dot}next retreat post. irregardless, you should know that i’ve been counting down the months until i’d be able to attend my next one. it’s set to begin 2.26.14. i am beyond stoked.

these retreats have been lifelines to me. i started attending them when i was beginning to believe that maybe following my dreams was out of my reach. i had begun to think that others got to follow their passion but not someone like me. the life(dot)next retreats helped me believe in myself and trust in my path again.

the community and conversation of the retreats help me think about the possibilities of my life. they’ve helped me to see life with more potential as i get older, not less.

and i’m going to admit to the fact that i’m still a little bit in denial that very soon the sun is going to disappear from my life for months and i will exist in a grey haze that is ohio for winter so taking off for someplace that is 80 and sunny just when i’m about to go bat shit crazy from it all sounds rather appealing, right?

the theme of this retreat is Flexing the Story. as soon as i heard that i was in. this is something i’ve been working on personally for some time. life is all about the stories we tell to ourselves and other people. when i focus on telling myself positive stories { i.e. yes, you can do this. you are smart and capable of figuring anything out as you go } my life is much smoother than when i tell myself negative stories { i.e. other people may follow their dreams but not you, elaine }. i really want the tools that this retreat will give me to further craft my story.

ladies, if you’ve been looking to get an inspiration infusion in your life then consider the retreat. if you think the retreat sounds wonderful but not your cup o’ tea then take a minute to square up against what is holding you back from doing something of this nature. consider it again. take a leap for the sake of growth. do you wanna come?

maybe you think the retreat sounds like a grand adventure, just not for you? then sponsor me! 

i know. i just panhandled. but seriously, someone should sponsor me because this momma is flat broke. partial donations will be accepted!

because, guess what. i’ve been following my dreams just like the retreats told me i should and in this world that comes with a price. i’m looking at it as an investment at the moment: very few returns in the beginning but a big payoff in the long-term.