No Average Mom

I have a confession to make. As much as I love working from home and being my own boss there are days I long for a taste of my professional career again. For those of you that don’t know my formal background is in health care. For over a decade I worked in private practice settings. I love the feeling of making a difference that comes with working to improve patient’s quality of life. Aside from that you have might have picked up on the fact that I am all about comfort. Going to work was always fun on those days I was able to wear scrubs. Nursing uniforms and scrubs have come so far over the years that I really prefer them to my regular clothes. Who wouldn’t want wear clothes with the comfort of pajamas as opposed to nylons and skirts?

I am going to have to do some serious upgrading to my closet to fit my new work at home mom lifestyle. Today , as I stood trying to find something casual yet stylish to wear I realized that everything I own is geared towards the workplace. Likely, my current sentimentality towards my professional career is being influenced by the fact that I have nothing to wear to coffee with the girls, book club, or PTA. Go in a skirt and you look over dressed. Go in scrubs when everyone knows you work from home and you look crazy. Maybe I should design a work at home mom uniform. Never mind ~ now that I think about it that is what track pants and t-shirts were made for?

When it comes to learning new games I have a fairly short attention span. My husband has tried for years to teach me a number of complex games but quite simply I become so bored I give up. One thing he has always wanted me to learn to play is backgammon. This however never materialized because backgammon rules never made sense to me as he described them. Recently be decided to investigate some innovative backgammon software featuring an animated tiger called “Jean-Claude”. This software features a 5 part animated series that explains in extremely user friendly language every aspect of playing backgammon. Jean-Claude even caught the attention of our 7 year old and as a family we have been exploring and testing our backgammon skills using this great software. The software is available as a free download at www.backgammonmasters.com which is a great risk free way to see if the game is something you want to learn more about. We have had a blast seeing which one of us know more answers to the trivia questions and attempting to wins prizes offered. I love the spin Jean-Claude puts on learning the game of backgammon and just how much fun is injected into the learning process for our entire family. This software packages backgammon as the perfect combination interactive computer software and technology along with a good old fashion game of challenge for today’s family.

Being a mom has taught me so many things about myself that I really don’t think I could have learned any other way. Yes, there are tons of moments where I want to scream or run and hide but I truly love being a mom. Our home is filled with lots of love and laugh and occasionally a few tears. What lessons has parenthood taught you? Do any of these sound familiar?

If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with rollerblades, they can ignite.

A 4-year-old’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.

If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42-pound boy wearing puppy underwear and a superman cape. It is strong enough, however, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20×20 foot room.

When you hear the toilet flush and the words ‘Uh-oh,’ it’s already too late.

A six-year old can start a fire with a flint rock, even though a 36-year old man says they can only do it in the movies.

Because this is my blog I am taking the liberty here and now of bragging about my children whenever I want. In my real life I do not and would not do this but here I am going to. It may happen a great deal so if this is a problem go elsewhere .

My oldest son, 7, is brilliant. So there I finally said it. I will preface that by saying he is also socially immature and has a knack for whining that drives me up the wall. I will preface the second statement by saying he has a heart so big, generous, and selfless that I wouldn’t trade the whining for anything if it meant him being less loving and caring.

To expound a bit on the way his mind works, think about other 7 year old boys you know…Mine gets up every morning and runs downstairs and grabs a book. One morning he read an entire book (Because of Winn Dixie) before we got up. Moby Dick, The Three Musketeers, and Last of the Mohicans are just a few of this month’s reads. As I type, he is reading the Encyclopedia of Science and asking me some tough questions. Having hit the letter A first he now wonders if the term “abortion” applies to the baby we lost during pregnancy a couple of years prior.

His mind is constantly a whirling with big ideas of things to build, create, make, and do. The number of times the child says “can we” in a day becomes mind numbing. I have mindlessly committed my husband and myself to any number of projects without considering what he is asking and then have to back out realizing the project is unattainable. This is bad form for a parent very, very bad form.

So this morning I had the idea of starting a “can we” list. This seems like a good idea on a number of fronts. The first being the child will get a great deal of handwriting practice (his is terrible). Secondly, it gives him a place to put his ideas. If the idea is truly important he is to write it on the list. Periodically (hopefully each week) we will go through the list and talk about the things on it and why they are import to him and whether or not they are feasible. As a parent this will keep me from mindlessly committing to build a robot while cooking dinner.

The first thing to go on the list was:

1. Build Me A Tail.

Why does he was a tail? According to him he could use this to stabilize himself when doing complicated task or just give one of his legs a rest when he has to stand for a long time…

Any parent out there knows that for a large portion of your life sleep is at a premium. I don’t think you can ever fully appreciate a good night’s sleep until you have experienced the mind numbing sleep deprivation that parenthood often brings with it. Because sleep continues to come in spurts in my house I take every measure possible to make it enjoyable. Having a comfy and cozy bed goes a long way towards making those one and two hour stretches of sleep feel more like five or six. Having great down bedding is one gift I have given myself to contribute to a rested feeling. Nothing compares to down for comfort in my book and with DownDeals everyone can experience the luxury down bedding offers. DownDeals offers unbeatable values for down pillows, comforters, and more. Whether it is winter, spring, summer, or fall down bedding creates a perfect sleep environment. Our bed is so comfy I love snuggling in the bed with my kids even if I am only daydreaming about sleep.

In our home our faith is an important part of our daily lives. I also believe that children should be given every opportunity to learn about different religions apart from their own. For example my son had several questions relating to the Catholic faith. This to me is a great teaching moment every parent should seize. To answer his need for information we spent some time online researching all aspects of Catholicism from the history of this faith and its principals to rosaries and everything in between. The message I hope to instill in my children is that there is a big wide world beyond their own vantage point and enable them to make well rounded decision about faith for themselves in the future.

Today I found myself with a few minutes to spare and decided to visit some of my favorite blogs from days gone by. These blogs were very important to me during our struggle with infertility and building our family. Over the years you start to feel this unspoken connection with people who share a similar life experience. As it has been almost a year or more since I have visited a few of these sites I was overjoyed and sadden in some cases to catch up with the lives of these “blog buddies”. A few like myself have since found themselves enjoying the miracle of parenthood while others are still riding the roller coaster of tears that this particular journey throws at you. I thank God everyday for my two beautiful children but even I have days where I would love a vacation alone at the Outer Banks. Visiting these blogs reminds just how fortunate I am to be knee deep in drippy noses, acting out in school, and middle of the night teething tears. On tough parenting days like today this brief moment of catch up was exactly the message this Mom needed. I am so thankful to be standing on this side of that journey !

As a child my parents encouraged us each to play an instrument. I fumbled my way through the flute for 5 years before finally being allowed to quit. Quite simply I have no musical talent at all nor the drive to succeed at it. Truth be told neither do my brothers despite my parents believing they did My musical failings extend beyond instruments and encompass singing as well. This does not stop me from being quite envious of people with musical talent. I have always assumed that there must be something genetic that predispose speople to this gift. In the back of my mind I believe my children were also destined for musical failure because as far I can tell neither side of their parental gene pool is dripping with musical talent.

My suspicions however have not stopped me from encouraging my son to test the musical waters and this year he began learning Suzuki violin. I braced myself at the onset for what was likely to be a long and tedious school year filled with the squeaking and squawking of a fumbling 1st grade musician. My child however has excelled beyond my expectations and has mastered over 11 songs in his first few months. Yes, he is far from a child prodigy but considering what I had prepared myself for I am astounded at his talent. We are given a new song virtually every week and all the child has to do is listen to it once or twice and off he goes to playing it. I love hearing him say ” I need to get the beat” and then he trots over to turn on the CD to listen to how the song should sound. Within minutes a recognizable rendition is coming from his violin. I don’t know what the future holds for my little violinist but I will encourage him as long as he holds and interest in playing. In the back of my mind I smile knowing that my little boy never ceases to amaze me and genetics won’t necessarily predict his future.