Lessons from the bird

I know I just wrote about things I learned while visiting with my grandmother recently, and here I am writing about things I've learned from the robin that built her nest 3 feet from our deck at eye-height. I guess every day can be full of insight when I take the time to look.

So one day about a month ago I noticed a nest in the tree just off our deck. The next day there was a light-blue egg in it. Then 2, then 3, then 4. It was fun to watch this each day with the kids. The robin sat on those eggs day and night until they hatched about 2 weeks later. Then she kept the babies warm and fed for another week or so. Then they flew off on their own.

We grew attached to those birds, going out each day to check on them (scare them was more like it). It was really cool to see nature up close and in action like that. We learned a lot about robins; and at the same time we learned some things about life.

#1: Pick a good place to raise your kids. With a whole family of curious humans in arms reach, I'm sure she was thinking she'd rather be in any other tree than that one. The branch also had no covering, meaning she was in view of plenty of predators. Miraculously, no predators came close. Maybe because she was so near to humans...so maybe she DID pick a good place to raise her kids.
#2:  Sometimes we have to sacrifice our own comfort in order to protect our kids. We had some pretty scary storms while the robin was sitting on her eggs. She was pummelled with rain and wind more than once . It was amazing to watch her sit there and protect them despite the cold, wind, and rain.
#3: Hold tight even when you're afraid. That mother robin was literally shaking each time we came out on the deck to look at her and the eggs. Eventhough she was probably scared to death of us, the robin had to stay on her eggs and protect them.
#4: When your kids whine and complain, just sit on them. Those babies were begging all day long for food. She fed them, but sometimes she'd give them a worm and just sit on them till they quieted down. I laughed and wished I could do this with my kids sometimes.
#5: Even birds have obnoxious kids. One of the babies never sat still, never stopped begging for food, and refused to stay under its mom. Watching her try to tame it made me laugh. All moms have the same struggles it seems.
#6: Death and difficulty are part of life. This was a hard one. One day there were only 3 birds in the nest instead of the 4 that hatched. We found it in the grass below the tree and had to explain to the kids that the bird fell out and died and, no, it couldn't go back in the nest. My kids had to deal with that, and I'm guessing the mother bird did too. (Unless the one that fell was the obnoxious one and the mom pushed it out of the nest herself. But that would be a whole other lesson, like how not to deal with post-partem.)
#7: There comes a point where you have to let them go. One day I noticed that neither the mother or father robin were on the nest. They knew it was time for the birds to be on their own. They didn't return and the babies, now with feathers developed, got hungry I'm sure. The next day I caught the baby birds taking turns perching on the edge of the nest. "They're about to fly away," I thought. How cool. And the next day they were gone.



It really was amazing to watch the whole process from start to finish. I was most encouraged by the instinct and commitment of the mom and thought, "With just those two things, I think all of us moms stand a pretty good chance at seeing our kids take off."

 

Pretty little eggs





  

   



All 4 hatched





Starting to get feathers




Ready to fly!



Learning from Grandma

I'm in Atlanta this week to see my grandmother. She's 78 and is here with my parents for a few weeks while she recovers from a fall that broke her back and her elbow (more on that below). I'm learning a lot from grandma.

1. You CAN survive on a steady diet of coffee, Cheetos and Little Debbies. No joke, here's my grandma's diet: breakfast is coffee with a couple cigarettes; lunch is Cheetos and a Coke (totally serious); dinner is a Little Debbie Star Crunch and another Coke (while she's here with my parents she's indulged them by eating a little of whatever my mom fixes for dinner that night). So here I am agonizing over feeding my kids hydrogenated oils, genetically-modified vegetables, and high-fructose corn syrup while my grandma puts nothing but chemicals in her body and enjoys it. Laugh. Out. Loud.

2. Life can be pretty scary when you get older. Technology changes so fast that I can't imagine what the world will look like by the time I'm in my 80's. Grandma has had to figure out how to pay her bills, maintain her house, and simply live in a society she can't begin to understand. Crazy to think about. Not to mention that her view of the world is pretty much what she watches on Cops and the evening news. Scary for sure! She thinks that's complete reality and is always warning me about stuff she sees on TV. Note to self, try to stay up on technology trends at least every few years so I don't feel totally helpless later. And never watch the evening news.

3. Hobbies are crucial. My grandma's only hobby is getting stuff done. She's a workaholic. Uh oh, this is just like me. She doesn't have anything to do here at my parents' because she doesn't have any hobbies. No crossword puzzles, no books, no games. Actually, she does watch Cops, so I guess you can call that a hobby. My grandma knows she's a workaholic. She broke her back falling off the ladder that goes up into her attic. The day after she got out of the hospital she tried to mow the lawn -- I'm really not kidding. My dad and uncle had to stop her. We were sitting on the back porch today and she said she's itching to cut down all the dead branches from the trees in my parents' yard. "Why," I said, "are you scared they'll fall on the house?" "No, just because I can't stand that there are dead branches out there that need cutting down. I'm a workaholic you know." Yes, Grandma, you are the definition of one. So I made another mental note to myself to make sure I maintain some hobbies all the way to my deathbed. Otherwise I might just work myself to death.

So, it's been a good few days with Grandma. I believe you can always learn a lot from previous generations, even though the things I've pointed out here may not be the deepest lessons.

Pretty soon she'll be back at her home in Florida, getting all the things done that she's so anxious to do right now. She wants to edge the lawn (cause the guy she pays to do it doesn't do a good enough job), do all her filing, get the house ready for hurricane season, and on and on. But you know, she'll have a good time doing it. And hopefully we won't get any more calls from Life Alert.

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...).