Keeping It Real

Parenthood, and life in general, can be exhausting, but keeping things in perspective certainly helps.

Sometimes my kids (especially my middle child) talk my ear off.  It can be enough to drive a person crazy when all you want is to not hear any voices for a few minutes.  But then I think about parents who's children don't or can't talk at all.  Those parents would give their left arm to hear their child start speaking and I'm complaining because mine talk too much.

When we are going through a vicious cycle of illness and I hear myself complaining about how someone's been throwing up for 2 days and I have to close down daycare while they recover, I think about the parents who've got it worse.  Parents who's child is going through chronic illness or cancer and miss weeks or months of work while they pray their child will survive.  It makes cleaning up vomity sheets seem like not such a bad deal.

When I find myself whining about an itchy case of eczema I think about my dad being hooked up to a colostomy bag, dealing with gout, while fighting cancer at the same time.  And I never heard him complain once.

When I'm feeling pulled in a million directions because I am over-run with children, I remember when we only had one and all the tears we shed trying to have a second little one.  And I think of the would-be parents who have struggled for years to have a child and how much they long for a child to need them.

On a similar note, when I'm rundown because the kids only want me so often, I'll think down the line when they are teenagers and just want to be independent and how I'll be their annoying mom.  I'll look back when they are 14 to when they were little and wanted me all the time and I'll wish I could go back to having tiny little arms around my leg.

When I'm stressed about money or feeling broke, I need to just be thankful that we have a roof over our head and food on the table.

And finally, when life gets to be too much and I want to run away, I'll remember to count my blessings and be thankful for what I have.

You Never Know

We've all seen it.

You're at the store, just trying to get a little shopping done, and there is a woman with her kids nearby.  And the kids are acting like little boogers.  Maybe they're crying, maybe screaming, maybe demanding one thing or another, but they are just being boogers.

You've probably seen this scene and thought to yourself why can't she get a handle on her kids? These kids must have no discipline at all!  What little snots, just get them out of the store and ground them already!

Don't even try to tell me that thoughts like that haven't passed through your brain, because we're human and we can't help but judge once in a while.

The thing is, and you'll know this if you are a parent (especially the parent who does most of the child-rearing)...

You just never know what happened earlier that day. or week. or hour.

Maybe those kids are normally very well behaved.  They could be at home right now sitting quietly doing calculus while dreaming up ways to better the world, but at that moment they were tired/hungry/teething/going through something rough.  Kids have bad days just like you.  Only we are adults and have (hopefully) learned how to control our emotions and moodiness a little better over the years.  And honestly?  Have you never lost it and acted like a fool because you had hit your breaking point?

Perhaps you're reading this and not blaming the kids for acting like the boogers they were being, but are blaming that mom who seems to not care.

Chances are, she cares a lot.  You don't know what happened before that moment.  Perhaps the kids have been cranky and unbearable all day, should that stop her from picking up something she needed?  I'm SURE she wouldn't have chosen to go to the store with cranky children if there was a way to leave them home.

You have no idea what her life is like, you have no idea what the kids' life is like, you have no idea because you are not the one walking in her shoes.  What may seem like obliviously ignoring a child's tantrum in public, may actually be her straw breaking the camel's back and it's all she can do to not scream bloody murder herself right there in the store.

My kids are generally pretty great in public, but there was a trip to a local thrift store semi-recently in which Little Man lost his ever-lovin-mind and turned into a child I did NOT know.  He was screaming, crawling/rolling on the floor, and crying.  I was so not used to that that I really didn't know what to do!  There was no talking him off that ledge, he really just needed to GO, but I needed to make my purchase before I could get the hell out of there.  I tried to look like I was doing something about it, tried to calm him down, but the only thing I really could do was check out as quick as possible and run for it.  I probably looked calm... I usually do... but inside I was dieing.  People around me were probably thinking some of the things from that third paragraph up there, but they weren't in my head, they aren't in my house, they are not me.

So instead of jumping to harsh judgement when you see the next public outburst of naughty child behavior and seemingly oblivious parenting, stop.  Think about what might possibly be going on in that families life that day, and instead of a look of horror, give her a look of  "I feel for ya" sympathy, or better yet - pretend it's not happening so she can get on with what she needs to do and get those kids home to bed!

Support each other, don't judge each other.

Comments

Confession:

I get mildly annoyed when bloggers don't reply or comment back to my comments.  Few bloggers whom I read actually do a great job at replying, at least a good chunk of the time.  I still read their blogs because I enjoy them, but I'm more likely to comment on someone's post if I get a reply once in a while.  It's like if someone gives a speech, you walk up to them and comment on their speech, and then they turn and walk away.  Make sense?

Here's where the confession part comes in.  I have not been a very good comment replier.  But I'm making a conscious effort these days to hit that reply button and show some appreciation for those comments!

As a blogger, it's exciting when someone comments on a post you write - like, someone actually read it and gave a crap about what you wrote! I love comments so much I have a little blinky button in my right column that expresses that!  So to say thank you for your comment, I will make a conscious effort to not turn and walk away, and hit that reply button!  I can't promise that I won't miss some, as sometimes I can't reply right away and then forget about them, but I'll try really hard!

This post was brought to you by Ragweed Allergies, making me generally annoyed at everything today.

Facebook - The Rants and Raves

Facebook.

It's pretty much awesome as far as I'm concerned.  While there are some aspects of it that drive me nuts, I don't know what I would do without it.  It's kind of a double-edged sword, allowing us to reconnect with people we haven't seen in years, stay current on what our friends are up to, and organize/invite friends to events easily.  At the same time it has completely killed my ability to connect with friends who are not on facebook unless I see them often. 

A recent example of this: a very good friend of mine from high school and early college years had refused to join facebook for whatever reason.  While we used to talk on the phone every few months to catch up, over time we talked less and less until our only correspondance was through Christmas cards (until I lost track of her address and even that had to go).  I could have emailed back and forth I suppose, or for that matter picked up the dang phone from time to time, but for some reason facebook seems to be my only method of non-face-to-face conversation anymore.  So when she finally joined recently as did a little happy dance in my living room because I could finally get my friend back.... pathetic? yep!  This friend has ment a lot to me over the years but I apparently suck at staying in contact with anyone outside of my newsfeed.

Then there's the things that drive me nuts. 

Item number 1: people constantly feeling the need to let everyone know that they now have another cow in their farmville game, etc.  I don't care about how you're doing in a game I don't play, and when all you do is share your game news withe everyone just know this... I will "hide" you from my newsfeed.  You've been warned.

Item number 2: "status shuffle".  Status Shuffle is a thing where you can click on it and it will give you choices of clever/funny/ironic statuses that you can use.  I will openly admit that I have tried it a couple times... no big deal.  BUT if 90% of your status updates come from Status Shuffle... then really what's the point of updating at all?  If your day is so boring or unoriginal that you can't come up with your own update then just close the dumb thing.  You know what though? even if your update is boring, it's at least yours. I had a recent status that spoke of how hungry I was at the time... what can I say - other than the fact that I'm often stressed out and really busy - my life is pretty borning, but at least it was original.

Item number 3: Terrible terrible grammer.  It is facebook and I'm not suggesting you need to proof read your updates or use all the proper punctuation/spelling/grammer, but it really gets my goat when someone types an entire paragraph or story without a single freaking punctuation mark.  I type run-on sentences like they are going out of style, but at least you'll get a comma every now and then to take a breath!  I'm no grammer-snob, but really god-awful grammer in facebook statuses have caused me to actually "hide" people from my newsfeed simply because I can't stand to read it.  Drives me nuts!

Ok, that rant's over.  I love facebook for the ways in which I can keep up with my friends/family.  I love it because I don't have a single coworker to randomly exclaim how hungry I am or how I want to glue my chatty 4-year-old's mouth shut and it allows me to throw it out there in about 3 seconds for anyone who cares (or doesn't care) to hear.

Oh, and please don't judge me for that last sentence in the previous paragraph.. I'm not perfect! :o)