Happy Housewife??

(Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I'm working full time again -- this time from home, which is glorious. But it means my mind isn't as full of blog ideas. It's more consumed by work, kids, the fact that I haven't done my taxes...)

I've been reading this hilarious book by Darla Shine called Happy Housewives. Absolutely love it. It's definitely going to be added to my recommended book list (see left sidebar). She's basically changed my perspective on being a homemaker. Since having kids and experiencing the absolute shock of how difficult motherhood is, I've sort of made it my mission to help other unsuspecting moms-to-be know they could be in for the same shock. Well, sometimes that mission turns into complaining -- about anything and everything we "suffer" from as moms.

Darla has helped me appreciate being a stay-at-home mom. Not that I didn't appreciate it before, but she kind of woke me up to the greatness of it and how ridiculous I am for complaining about any of it. She's made me feel good about taking care of my own house and my own kids. She's convinced me that I do have time to do it all and look good doing it. That I can have my act together and roll with the punches. And that I can take pride in being a housewife.

Don't believe me? Check it out yourself. She'll have you rolling on the floor laughing as you realize that being an at-home-mom is the best gift of your life.

Hiding My Vices From My Kids

Yesterday my kids yelled "Stop sign Mommy!" as I casually slid through an intersection in our neighborhood. I mean, really, who stops all the way at the stop signs in neighborhoods?

I never have before, but this mom will be now. At that moment I cringed at the thought of my future teenage boys getting pulled over for not stopping at a stop sign, then explaining to the cop that they learned the skill from me. They're already so observant, the little stinkers.

"Do as I say and not as I do." Of course that doesn't work one bit. A vice we'd like to have is all the more excusable when we've seen our parents possess the same vice. I can't expect it to be any different for my kids.

So now that I've decided I'm going to come to a complete stop at stop signs, I've realiezed there are actually several vices I've learned to hide since having kids.

The biggest one is eating sweets. At first I thought I could sneak a treat every now and then when they were awake, but kids can hear candy wrappers from a mile away. I don't know how they do it! If my kids got a candy, chocolate, ice cream, etc. as often as I'd like one they'd be eating sweets all day long. I LOVE desserts and I do wish I could eat them all day long. But alas, I have to sneak them when the kids are asleep.

Another one is cussing. Now, I don't walk around like a sailor, but a good cuss word can bring healing to my bones on a rough day. Problem is, it's usually the kids leading me to this desire and I can't cuss around them. The last thing I need is my 2 year old picking up on some h-e-doublehockeysticks and thinking it's funny (even though it is; but it really isn't). So I've learned to hide my cussing too.

Is hiding our vices a bad thing? I don't think so. At least not when our kids are little. Admitting our vices to our children when they're old enough to discuss them with us - that's a good thing. It's good for our kids to know we're human. Until then, I'll act like I enjoy stopping at stop signs. 

I'll bet you've learned to hide a few things from your kids too...

Things I took for granted before having kids

There are a lot of things in daily life as a non-parent that you just don't realize the value of until those things are gone. I've taken a minute to make a very non-exhaustive list of those things, especially for those who are about to have their first baby. People tell you life will never be same, but they don't really tell you how; here are just a few of the ways they're referring to.

 

Things I took for granted before having kids:

• Getting to go to the bathroom alone and with the door closed
• Taking a shower - even a 3-minute one
• Sleeping in (sleep in general, actually)
• Sitting down to eat a meal
• Eating a warm meal
• Staying up late
• Staying out late
• Going out at all
• Making it to places on time and without embarassing stuff on my clothes
• A house that smells nice
• Reading the mail before it got lost
• Playing loud music any time of day or night
• Eating things that are bad for me in the middle of the day
• Wearing white or off-white
• Going shopping by myself
• Leaving the house to go burn off steam
• Being able to carelessly judge all parents whose kids pitch fits in public, whine, or have dirty faces
• Not having hemorrhoids (sorry, that may be tmi)

The good news is that even though having kids means you lose many things that you value, your life doesn't go down  in value one bit. It goes way up. You trade daily comforts and an easy-going lifestyle for a precious, beautiful baby and the many emotions, memories, and miracles they bring.

Motherhood is like Valium for my Achiever Theme

I'm the kind of person who likes to get things DONE. Give me a list and I'll have it accomplished in no time. I need to accomplish things in order to feel like my day has been worth something.

This is just another of the ways motherhood has turned my world upside down. It's like Valium for my desire to Achieve.With motherhood, you don't get much done. At least, not in the way of tangible things. You're extremely busy all day long getting nothing done. Seriously. I know, I know, I'm loving my kids all day and that's what is most important, but I really do need to accomplish some measurable things each day. If you're not like that, consider yourself blessed.

I used to have a to-do list well organized on my computer that I was able to delete things from when they were completed. Ha! Now I have to-do lists on little pieces of paper all over the house because I can't even finish writing a to-do list before my attention is needed elsewhere. Then I can't find the one I started, or it's been colored on or peed on or used as a spit wad.

In some ways, to-do lists are obsolete in motherhood anyways because how often do we actually finish an item on there? On any given day I've started at least 6 items needing done that aren't finished by the end of the day. Letters half-addressed because I couldn't find my address list before the toast burned. Phone calls that had to be concluded before a decision was made because one kid pushed another into the toilet. A blog that's taken 3 days to write because of a kid's repeated refusal to take a nap.

I do feel good when I get the dishes done, the laundry done, dinner in the oven, or some item of cleaning done. But I don't even consider putting those things on a to-do list because --  let's face it -- they'd NEVER get crossed off. They'd be on there every single day for the rest of our lives!!!! And the point, after all, is to cross things off. :)

Although my world feels like a circle of half-done projects jeering at me as I stand in the middle, I'm learning not to let this bother me so much. I can handle it for a day or 2, which is really good for me; but after 2 or 3 days of not actually getting a good chunk of stuff done, I start to get overwhelmed. Buried. Then I pass the kids off to my understanding husband and get to work like a drill sargeant on my list(s). It's amazing what I can get done when I have just 3 hours of focused, uninterrupted time. Ahhhh.

If  you're like me and getting things done is like medicine for your heart and soul, rock on. We need to support each other or else we're going to end up on Valium ourselves.

What's For Dinner Tonight

Our family has been caught up lately in the movement toward eating more natural food. To be honest, it's kind of stressing me out, even though I know the changes are worth it. It's hard enough already to get two toddlers to eat well; now I have to worry that even the "best" things they're eating could be slowly killing them.

Studies change overnight. Today olive oil is good for you; tomorrow it's carcinogenic (but only when heated!). All things plastic are killing us. Fruits and vegetables are killing us because they're covered in chemicals. Corn-fed cows are killing us. The list is endless. And when I start to make small changes to our diet, the onion just keeps getting more layers.

Ignorance was bliss. How easy it was to make my own 30-minute meals or drive through Chick-fil-a (and we still do those things every now and then). How much less time I spent doing dishes. How much money I saved buying foods loaded with preservatives and genetically-modified ingredients.

In many ways I'm happy to make these changes, but I do need to vent about how much they're really upending my convenient lifestyle. No wonder boxed food was invented -- it takes a ton of time to make stuff from scratch. And going to McDonald's is both fun (because of the playland) and yummy (they have the best fries on earth).

I joke about getting stressed out, but the move to more homemade stuff is kind of fun. Once my kids get used to me being in the kitchen a lot more, they'll eventually join me in the cooking. I enjoy knowing I'm feeding them what is as natural as it can be and helping them establish habits of eating well and well-rounded (although they haven't caught on to the well-rounded part yet). And I like researching these things for the betterment of our health.

It's just a much bigger project than I thought it would be. And everyone knows I like stuff to be EASY.

So what is for dinner tonight? Leftovers, because I'm tired of slaving in the kitchen all week. But you know what -- those leftovers are pretty darn healthy (unless we reheat them in plastic in the microwave...).

Decisions, Decisions

Once you're a mom for about 2 days, you realize that every day is made up of millions of decisions.

You are constantly trying to decide on things concerning you, your kids, your hair, whether or not to shower that day, organic or non-organic, find a sitter or stay home, spend or save...the list is literally endless. Some are small decisions that don't really mean anything in the long run; others are more important.

Yesterday was one of those days where I almost shut down because there were too many decisions weighing on me. Little ones, medium ones, and big ones all at the same time.

I finally had to sit down and make a list of them so that they'd stop bugging me. Once I get things out of my head and on to paper, they seem less daunting. And, as my life coach told me several times, getting them out of your head "turns off the faucet" that's dripping in there.

Well, I wrote them all down, so the faucet was off. But I still had a bathtub full of decisions that needed to be made and what was I supposed to do with that?

I did the only thing I knew how to do: ask God for help. James 1:5 says if I ask God for wisdom He'll give it, so I asked God for wisdom on each of those decisions. Some I was able to decide on that day. Others are still in the works. But I at least know I'm not alone in making those decisions. God cares about all the details of our lives, even the teeny tiny ones that don't really make a huge difference anyways (mac n cheese or hot dogs?).

I love wisdom. I can't live without it. I'd drive myself mad if I didn't rely on God for wisdom every day. In fact, any day that I try to do it on my own pretty much results in madness, so it's obvious when I'm not relying on God. But that's a whole other issue.

Off to do some google research concerning a few things on my decisions list...

All my faults running around on two legs

I have a tendency to expect perfection. It's a fault, I know. The person I expect it in the most is myself. And I beat myself up over my own faults. So it's no surprise that I take it personally when I see that my children have inherited some of my characteristics that I deem less than perfect.

My oldest child gets very upset when things aren't the exact way he wants them. I don't mean in a typical toddler way. He's quite obsessive about it. Who does he get that from? Me. And his tendency to be grumpy instead of joyful -- also me.

My youngest child wants everything to be easy. He dislikes any bit of pain. And he's incredibly stubborn. Me again.

Plus both of my children are fabulously dramatic and love to over-react about anything. All day. Just like me.

Every day I'm tempted to think I've done my children a huge disservice by passing my negative traits on to them. But today God showed me differently.

No one is perfect. (Ok, that's not what God showed me. I knew that already.) Faults in my childrens' character, personality, or perspective, are there so that they can work through them. Working through them builds their relationship with God and with others. It causes them to grow.

My children need to fight and win some battles for themselves. So if my kids are going to have any faults to fight through, I'm glad it's ones they've inherited from me. Because I can be there to empathize with them and help them through.

On a side note too, now that I think about it, I didn't notice some of my own faults until I saw them running around in my children. That bad attitude my oldest likes to display all the time -- mine! I like to say that having kids is God's way of changing the things in you that you've always known needed to change but never took the time to do it. Kids will do that to you.

I actually am encouraged to think that there are some things that my children and I will work through together. "Mom, why does our family always...(fill in the blank)." That will be fun.

And what a blessing to be able to recognize the things in my children that I don't want them to suffer through as I have, and to pray that they'll win their battle against those things much sooner than I did. They'll be able to go through life much more unfettered than me.

So, to sum it all up: seeing my faults running around in my children is a blessing, not a curse. And since my kids will be perfect by the time they have kids of their own, I wonder what my grandchildren will be like... j/k.