The Great Debate

To facebook or not..that is the question. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without social media. It’s one of those things that you lived without for so long, but now you don’t know what you did before it. I love FB because it has given me the chance to reconnect and keep in touch with so many amazing people that I would probably have lost touch with forever. Not only did I reconnect with them, but I know what they had for dinner and what color their bedroom walls have been painted. But at what point do you walk away from the screen and actually have a conversation with the person beside you? Are we losing precious opportunities with the ones we love in order to share our personal lives with anyone who cares to pay attention? And what is it about human nature that makes us want to peek into the daily routines of someone we haven’t seen in 30 years? I think it all started during the dawn of reality TV. “This is the true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped. Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.” I mean who can forget Puck? We got sucked into watching people live their lives. I think Facebook is almost the same thing. However, like TV, it’s been edited. Edited to make it more dramatic, to make it look more beautiful, to make it look more romantic. Someone once said that if you look at a picture of a perfect family on Facebook, ask yourself what you think happened right before or right after that picture was taken? We can make ourselves look like whoever we want on the Internet. But that might not be who we really are. I love Facebook and I always will, and I really feel like i’ve created a great bond with a lot of people I’ve reconnected with. My little community that I cheer on when they do their first 5k or welcome a new child into their life. The ones I cry for when they’ve lost a parent or have a sick child. The same ones that tell me where I can find a good plumber on a Saturday afternoon. This is what I love the most about Facebook. But it’s important to keep in perspective that what you see is not always what you get. Don’t compare your family to that perfect family photo that your best friend from first grade just posted. And don’t forget to enjoy the real people in your life that are sitting to the right or left of you. If you can find that perfect mix of the living in the real world around you and enjoying the community of friends you have online then life is good. You may or may not want to know that I went to Lafayette Coney Island last night, or that I will request a new hotel room if I find one little hair that doesn’t belong to me, or that Louie just lost his first tooth not long ago. If you don’t want to know that, then don’t read it. If you do then I welcome you to my life. And thank you for the advice, I’ll be keeping my hair long for a while 😉

Advertisement

Silent night

3:28 AM. A door opens, closes and opens again. I try to ignore it but I can’t. I have to see whats going on. I open my door to see Jay in his doorway holding Rudy, our cat. “He bit me in the head”, he says as he tosses Rudy in the hallway. Rudy sachets down the hallway as if biting people in the head at 3:30 in the morning is a normal occurrence and he owns the place. “It’s okay” I say, “he was probably just playing with your hair”. Door slams. Oh no, I hope that slam doesn’t wake anyone else up!  I’m officially awake now. And there goes the spinning wheels in my head. All of the stuff that has to be done tomorrow! oy! I finally start to doze off to sleep.

3:51 AM. “Mommy! MOMMY!! I drag my tired self out of bed again to see Rex standing at the door ” I wat u lay with me. In MY room!” Too tired to protest, I grab my comfiest pillow and head over to the twin size bed next-door. Now I’m really awake. I can count on being awake until at least 5 now and soon I will hear the horrid ring of the alarm. Its one of those things, you can’t sleep so you keep looking at the clock, Ok if I fall asleep now I have 4 more hours of sleep, etc, etc, Until your down to about two hours left and you finally fall asleep.

Just a little background. I’m a gal who loves me some sleep!! Waking up in the morning for me is one of the most painful things I have to endure every day. I see so many moms out there who have grocery shopped and taken their kids on play dates and cleaned their house by the time I have gotten dressed. I envy those moms. How do I become one? But the sweet sweet slumber just takes over my body and I can’t fight it. And to make matters worse I have guilt attached to it. See, I have a husband who is one of those morning people. Imagine how I feel when he gets up at 6 AM on Saturday morning and by the time I’m up at the lazy bum hour of 830 he has already gone to Home Depot 20 times, gotten donuts, raked the leaves and read the paper. I try to justify it by saying some people just need more sleep, maybe they do? I’d like to test that theory. Imagine the enjoyment I had when I had newborns who were constantly demanding their food all throughout the night! Just sleep little ones, I begged! But I survived, and they did too somehow. Kids have no idea how lucky they have it. They can take NAPS, but they act like it is the end of the world to have to take one. I tell them its like giving away gold. They’ll realize that one day. Until then this sleeping beauty is going to to have to drag herself out of bed like the rest of the functioning world or until they start school at 11:00 am and bedtime is midnight, I’m just going to have to deal. Only 15 years or so until I get to sleep in? It’ll be here before you know it. And you know what, I’ll be balling my eyes out wishing I had the days of their youth back.

Good Morning Beautiful World

… and she loved a boy very, very much– even more than she loved herself…

Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree

This is my favorite book of all times. And that one simple phrase sums it all up. After all of the wrestling, screaming, tattling, temper tantrums, there is this gentle calm underneath it all. A bond they have with their mommies that no one can break. They show this to me when they cuddle with me at night and tell me that I’m the best mommy in the world. They make me so proud, even on their worst days, they make me proud. I would move mountains for them. Cross the ends of the earth for them. Give my life just to see them happy. They are growing up before my eyes. One day I will pick them up, put them down and never pick them up again. I don’t want that day to come but I know it’s coming. So I try to enjoy and embrace every moment. I’m as guilty as the next person when I say that I let my patience get the best of me at times. I may not always make the best choices, but I will learn from those choices and make better ones next time. So little men in my life, I want you to know that you are the stars to my moon. The peanut butter to my jelly. The ying to my yang and I promise to be the best mom I can be to you every day. And when I’m old, gray and can’t take care of myself and you read this, I hope this helps me secure a room in your house . I don’t like nursing homes.

About

About.

I Never….oh yes I have!

Last night was one of those beautiful nights. You know the kind. You pay a babysitter an insane amount of money to watch your kids while you go out with friends and try to re-live your 20’s. So there we were, Out at a bar having a great time and the suggestion to play an old drinking game from our college days called “I Never”, also know as “Never Have I Ever” came up. Everyone kind of looked around hesitantly at each other as this game is an infamous fight starter (You did WHAT? WHEN? Weren’t we dating then? You didn’t send me those pictures!). Not this time, I’ve been married to my husband for 12 years. There is nothing we don’t know about each other. So we decided to play. For those of you who don’t know the game “I Never”, it’s a game where someone will say something like “I’ve never cheated on a test”. If you’re sitting at the table and HAVE done this, you have to drink. Let’s just say I was somewhat of a troublemaker (God Bless my parents) and my first beer was gone within minutes. Quickly I was on my second, and third and thats when it started to get a little fuzzy. The next thing I knew I was dancing on an open patio in 30° weather, that was until my not so 20 year old knee gave out on me. I’m paying for that today. But we can save that for another blog. But this game got me thinking today, as I was laying on the couch all day long (Another reminder that I am no longer 20). How am I going to handle those days when my kids grow up? Will I be the helicopter mom that parks outside of the party and peeks in the windows, or will I hand my sons a box of condoms and say “go get ’em tiger, and bring me a six pack on the way home”. I hope somewhere in between. I thought I was safe and I had years to decide their fate until today I was sitting in the family room as my 9 year old son played Minecraft on the computer in the room next to me. All of a sudden I heard him yell at the screen “Wussies”! Although, it wasn’t wussies, it RHYMED with wussies but started with a P. To my horror I started the inquisition…”Where did you hear that? Which one of your friends talks like that? Did you hear that on YouTube? I’m blocking Youtube!” My husband casually walked into the room and said “I got this…Jay, thats not a nice word to call someone. I don’t want to hear you saying it again or you will be grounded”. Bam, done. End of conversation. Effective and to the point. Kids are going to be influenced by everything around them and I’ve learned, or I’m going to have to real quick, that I can’t keep them in a bubble. They are going to grow up, make mistakes, fall down and get back up again. It’s this thing we call life. Would I like to keep their ears covered and every ounce of alcohol kept away from their lips for the rest of their lives? You bet. Is that going to happen? Not a chance in hell. If anything, I want my kids to feel like they can call me and say they’ve had a little too much to drink and would I please pick them up? If I instill the fear of God in them I know they won’t ever do that and I might end up wishing I handled things a lot differently. So I guess what I’m saying is that kids are going to be kids. I can tell them what is right and I can tell them what is wrong but they are going to do what they want in the end. I just want them to know that I am there for them during that crazy time that we call adolescence. They are going to be ok, and smart and successful and anything they want to be. Even if they fall a few times, because their dad and I will be there to pick them up. And if there is one thing I want them to know, its that. They are LOVED beyond words. And besides, I turned ok didn’t I?