Mama Tells All

I have been telling myself all summer that I won’t cry when my oldest child goes to kindergarten in a mere eight days. He is so ready for this next adventure. I have no reason to cry, right?

Picture from preschool graduation…

So then I had to wonder why I was feeling emotional as I pushed my cart down the aisle at the grocery store that contains the packaged snacks in little bags that are meant for snacks on the go, or school lunches. The thought of packing his lunch, and sending him out the door to school to fend for himself for eight hours a day, had me feeling weepy over the bags of Teddy Grahams and Cheezits.

I repeat to myself that I know that he is ready to go to kindergarten. Some days, I am more than ready to send him. But then I think of all those things he still needs help with, and I think, “Who is going to tell him to wash his hands before lunch? Cover his mouth when he sneezes??” Duh. His teacher and other adults will. I am a teacher myself. I know this. But still…

This whole list of things has been running through my head of what I need to do to prepare him for the big first day. I want it to be PERFECT. Don’t we all want that for our kids…

When I search Pinterest, I know that I will be inundated with creative ideas for marking this milestone. I want his outfit for the first day of school to be one that will let him feel confident, I want his lunch to be awesome, and basically…I just wish that I could tuck myself into his backpack and tag along the first day. Just to make sure everything goes smoothly.

But I can’t do that. Because here is the thing: at some point, little birds must leave the nest. Kids must one day become students and go to kindergarten. I have always loved the saying, “Two of the greatest gifts that we can give our children are roots and wings.” I hope that we’ve got a solid start on the roots part…because now it’s time to let him spread his wings. (It might help to think of kindergarten as an enclosed bird sanctuary where all birds have tracking devices and trainers. Less scary.)

I hope that his first day of school is perfect, but it may not be. He might get lost in his big new school. Someone might be mean to him. He could be unable to get the bag open that holds his Cheezits at lunch and not know who to ask for help. He could break one of his brand new crayons. (Please don’t let it be green – that’s his favorite color.) I would love it if none of these things happened, but they could.

When I send him off on the bus, I will tell him that his first day is going to be “so awesome!!”, and I will smile a huge smile, wave at him until the bus drives out of sight, and then who knows what I will do. I would like to think that I won’t cry because I know that this is a happy moment.

But there is a chance that I will think of him as he was when he was placed in my arms after 41 weeks of pregnancy, a failed induction, a last minute c-section, and a lot of tears. I will think of him as a two year old with a freshly broken arm welcoming his brother into the world. I will see him as a sweet big brother, placing gentle kisses on his baby sister’s head. I will think of him blowing bubbles, playing soccer, and reading stories. And I might picture a thousand other moments that make me wonder where the last five and a half years have gone.

My soon to be kindergartener when he was a few days old…I blinked, and now he’s five.

So, it’s okay to cry when he steps up into the school bus, especially if he doesn’t look back.

It’s okay moms, if you cry when you send your babies off to kindergarten. You’ve earned that right. You’ve worked hard to get that sweet child of yours to the point that they are at, and while they will return home in a short eight hours, this is still likely the first time that you sent them off into the world without knowing exactly how it would go.

It’s okay if you go back inside after putting your child on the bus and spend the next hour looking at his or her baby photos. Before you know it, you will arranging those photos for school projects…and eventually graduation displays…and wedding slideshows. Today might inspire you to get going on filling out that baby book that you didn’t have time to do yet. (I swear I had good intentions to document his every move and milestone, but I was just soooo tired then while they were happening.)

It’s okay to want your child to come home and say that they missed you soooo much. It’s also okay to be a bit hurt if they had so much fun that they did not miss you one little bit. And I am sure that for many kids, the excitement of kindergarten is more than enough to take their minds off of mom and dad for the day.

So basically, everything will be okay. Whether the first day of kindergarten is completely amazing or a total bust, whether you sob like a baby as you put your child on the bus or you gleefully grin as you think of that day care payment not being made, it will all be okay. This is one of those big shiny milestones that all parents and kids get through one way or the other.
I hope you all tuck a Kleenex and some hope for a good school year into your pocket as you send your babies off. Wishing everyone a fabulous school year!

Today I helped my oldest of three children pack his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack full of crayons, markers, and pencils for his kindergarten Open House that is coming up in a mere week and a half. Earlier today I was going over my youngest of three’s wardrobe, and figuring out what I will pack away in the pink plastic totes I bought because my four month old has already outgrown her three and six month clothes.

Everyone warned me about this; kids grow up. You have a baby boy swaddled in your arms at 3 a.m. and the next thing you know you’re packing his kindergarten things. I thought my daughter’s pregnancy would NEVER END (it was a doozy), but yet it did. My doctor always told me that all pregnancies eventually do end, but I had a hard time believing it with this go around.

Today she discovered that she has feet. One of my very favorite baby milestones.

It is these snapshots in time that are showing me just how much I want to slow down and enjoy what is now. That’s not always easy. Anyone with multiple children of single digit ages knows that the day to day life of a mama at this stage is exhausting. To say the least. Just the other day I thought I would do nothing but deal with poop ALL. DAY. LONG. I wanted the day to end. I think I said the word ‘no’ a gazillion times. And that doesn’t feel like an exaggeration, although I am sure I would tell my sixth grade English students that I could count that as a hyperbole in their writing.

I stumbled upon a very simple way for me to enjoy my kids as they are right now. In all their messy, demanding, glorious little kid-ness. One day I was so fed up with saying “NO!” that I just said “Yes!” (A side note: I still said no to things. I still didn’t allow the boys to pummel each other, jump off the furniture, or eat five packs of fruit snacks. Although saying yes to that last one might have earned me VIP mom status in their eyes.)

“Mom, can you play Uno again?”

“Yes I can.” (Needed to fold laundry and start lunch, but decided that could wait.)

“Mom, will you build us a fort?”

“Yes I can.” (Wanted to empty the dishwasher, but decided that could wait too.)

For a pair of brothers who have heard a whole lot of ‘no’ this summer, they just delighted in hearing a ‘yes’ that I don’t think they were expecting. It also made me a little sad when I saw their surprised faces at some of the ‘yes’ responses that they received. I think ‘no’ had become the norm. It was fun to say yes!

A few more observations about saying ‘yes’…

1. It was way more fun to play Uno and build a fort than do chores.
2. My boys were much better behaved when they got a chance to hear a ‘yes’ amongst the still numerous “NO!”s
3. The hugs I got at the end of this day were a little bit longer and I think they squeezed just a little bit harder. Or maybe that was me holding on a little bit longer and squeezing just a bit harder…

So I sit here, with two weeks left of summer vacation, and I am hoping to get the chance to say a loud, resounding “Yes!” whenever I can. Believe it or not, my dishwasher did still get emptied, the laundry got folded, and we eventually ate lunch. Saying ‘yes’ when I could so easily have said ‘no’ or ‘sorry, not right now’ showed me that yes, right now, is in fact the time to play Uno and build forts. And read “Froggy Goes to Camp” for a third time in a row. And snuggle for just five more minutes before naptime.

One day that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle backpack will be traded in for a trendy backpack. The tubs of clothes will be filled with even bigger sizes. I will hopefully look upon these changes and see all that I enjoyed before the next best thing came along.

Hug them, love them, breathe them in.

Enjoy them as they are now.

Say yes.

Motherhood. A messy, exhausting, all-consuming piece of yourself that seems to take over your entire being. As a current stay at home mom to three wonderful children ages five, three, and three months…I sometimes feel like I have lost “me”. I am “Mommy” right now. From 4:00 in the morning with that first feeding of my daughter, to 9:30 at night when she finally goes to bed, and all the in between of taking care of everyone…there isn’t a lot of time to do things for me. I would love to read a book or watch a mindless sitcom, or heck…just go to the bathroom or eat a sandwich without answering a dozen questions. But my days right now are primarily filled with being a parent.

This is just fine; I chose this. But I still miss being someone other than “Mom” at times. I feel like I have one identity in which to get things right, and that is being a mom. So when I feel as if things are coming unglued: my oldest is crying because I “NEVER” play games with him (I just played three games of Spot It with him), my middle child wants his fifth snack of the day (and it’s 10 a.m.), and my darling daughter is crying because she just had a “poopsplosion”…I want to sit down, and say, “I am doing my best! Can’t the craziness end?? I need something to keep me going!”

It didn’t take me long to realize that motherhood is not really about those moments that you see in commercials or on family channel specials. Yes, those moments do happen, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes the stars align and all my kids listen to me…for at least 15 minutes. Sometimes I make dinner and everyone eats it without whining. (GASP! Did that really just happen?!! We are eating this EXACT meal EVERY night for the rest of our lives!)

But sometimes my oldest is growling at me saying that I am NOT invited to his birthday party, or that I am “not his BFF!!” (I know buddy, I’m your mom)…and I think that I must have done something wrong along the way to have such a sassy kid. My boys can play like best friends one moment, and be slugging each other the next. I think to myself, “How did I lose control? Why don’t they play nicely?” When I get tired, I tend to chalk up all of this to some sort of failure somewhere along the line that I could have controlled. Shouldn’t there have been an article, book, or blog post on this topic that would’ve taught me what to do? If I’m going to do this mom thing, I want to do it RIGHT!

And then along comes one of those shiny Hallmark or Pinterest worthy moments that puts some much needed meaning back into the madness. Yesterday I had a long day home with the kids. Nothing overly crazy went wrong, but there was the general commotion of occasional fighting, not pooping in the toilet, spilling things, the no-naps-coinciding kind of chaos that can leave a mom feeling like she ran a marathon. With three monkeys attached to her the whole way. After dinner, I ran out to an appointment and was gone less than an hour. And let’s be honest: even though I was going to get three allergy shots, the thought of sitting out the obligatory thirty minutes post shots to make sure that I had no reactions sounded SO amazing. Thirty minutes to sit, in peace and quiet. Ahhh. A chance to decompress from a long and crazy day and not be needed by someone else.

When I returned home, there in the driveway was what I needed to get through the next crazy day. My oldest son had written the simple message “I love you Mom” on the driveway in chalk. I asked my husband if he told my son to write this, since I probably left the house with a bit of a crazed look in my eyes from our daily adventures, but he said no, he simply helped with the spelling of the message per my son’s request.

Now only a mom could see something more than just chalk in something like this. But I took a moment and let this sweet message sink in. When I am crabby with the kids, even when we don’t leave the house because I don’t dare try with the current state of emotions in my young kiddos…my son still loves me. Somehow, he can see past the tired, overwhelmed lady to the mom that he loves. He found the good in our day and let it be known on the driveway. When I see his note, I remind myself of all the things that we did do while “surviving” at home. Because sometimes that’s what it feels like in the moment: surviving. But it is so much more than that.

We played games. (A lot of games.) I played a few more rounds of Uno and Kings in the Corner than I wanted to play. We picked blackberries in the backyard on our daily quest to find a tasty snack. I picked them all for my son who didn’t want to get close to the bugs. I hate bugs. Especially the white spider by the “bestest berry right THERE Mom!” My son’s smile was my reward for my near-spider encounter.

I played soccer with one son and catch with the other…at the same time. I read books to them. Made them meals. Trimmed their fingernails. (Now if that isn’t a glamorous mom moment…) And the list goes on. So instead of thinking of all those things that weren’t so great today, when I look at what I did right…well there was actually quite a bit of it. And enough of me being the best mom that I can be, so much so that my son could overlook his numerous timeouts and my resulting frustration, and just love me. Perhaps I filled the day up with enough good to overlook the bad.

Before I ran out the door to my appointment, my son quickly ran to me, grabbed my hand, and plopped a kiss on it. He ran away without saying anything. But between that and his sweet message on the driveway, I was reminded that I am enough for him. And enough for all of my children. Because no matter what our day looks like and how it goes, the one thing they know without a doubt is that their mom loves them.

So the next time you feel crazy and fed up and thinking that things couldn’t get any nuttier, you couldn’t get any more exhausted, or you will never measure up to what mothers are “supposed” to do and be, look for the little things that can keep you going. A message in the driveway. A picture made for you with love. A kiss or a snuggle that is unexpected. These moments will carry you through the rest of the craziness that fills your days. These moments make me glad that I am Mommy, even if it is all the time.

Wishing you a moment or two that keeps you going today!