Mommy

All posts tagged Mommy

Imperfect me!

Published April 7, 2016 by hrhdana

I never thought I’d be a Mom.

I desperately wanted to be one.

I knew when I was a kid that I wanted to be a wife and a Mom.

Real talk.

But when you make it to 30 plus and it hasn’t happened for you, you start to believe that it won’t.

Then it did.

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I think I floated for 3 years. I marveled in every milestone and accomplishment. I woke up and went to sleep with prayers of thanksgiving dancing off of my lips. I researched parenting like it was a master’s class. I subscribed to every blog, purchased at least 40 books and lived on parenting websites. I knew what kind of Mom I was going to be. I was going to be patient and fun and creative and loving. I was going to be kind and calm and supportive. I was going to be perfect.

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That is always my goal. To be perfect. No matter how many times I tell my therapist that I know I cannot be perfect. No matter how many times I said that I know perfection is impossible, unattainable and just a way that I self-sabotage, I still believed I could do THIS thing, this Mommy thing as close to perfect as possible. I mean I had never done anything THIS important before. I had never had a blessing THIS big before. Surely I could do THIS thing perfectly. Surely I could.

I tried. Mommying consumed me. I don’t know how my friends put up with me. I had nothing to contribute to conversations unless it was about my Little Bit. I lost me. And I lost me so well that it took me at least two years to even notice that I was lost. The most depressing part was that even in throwing my all in to my parenting I wasn’t perfect. I still lost my temper with my little blessing. I still struggled with playing on the floor with her. I still couldn’t make Pinterest creations translate in to real life. I still burned dinner sometimes. I never did make it to Michael’s or get my Christmas cards out this year. I still couldn’t get her to eat avocado and she didn’t care that it was a “perfect” food. Sighs

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And it stopped being fun for me. I love my kid with everything in me. She is amazing. She is smart and kind and funny and gorgeous and patient and stubborn and she makes me proud every single day. But I? I was falling short in so many ways. She was watching hours of TV when I know that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids 2 and older have no more than one to two hours daily. She was drinking juice. And not only juice, but the kind I brought from a store and not the juice I told myself that I was going to make for her with organic produce in my juicer at home. She was off of vegetables almost completely. She was eating candy for Christ’s sake! What kinda perfect Mom lets her kid have candy?!?!?! I was failing. And it wasn’t fun for me anymore because instead of seeing a happy, well-adjusted kid all I was seeing was MY failure at the most important blessing God had ever given me.

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I failed. Again.

Parenting will reveal every single patched over wound that you possess. Your children will strip you bare of all the makeup you wear for the world AND for yourself. My kid is like a magnification mirror that shows me all of the places inside of me that are decidedly UN-perfect. And it is hard. Because if I want to be the best Mom that I can be it starts with being the best Dana I can be. That means owning my crap. That means removing the foundation I slather on my face and addressing the problem that caused the dark spots under my eyes. It means getting the actual sleep I need so I don’t look like a raccoon. It means accepting my imperfections and doing what I can to address the problems that I am hiding under makeup.

 

And it’s hard.

Did I say that already?

So, here I am. I am standing here naked faced admitting what everyone else knows. I am not a perfect Mom. I’m not a perfect anything. And if I keep trying to be what I cannot be it will squeeze all of the joy out of my life. This is a lesson I have been trying to learn for decades now. I tell my therapist at least once a month that I’ve accepted my imperfections. But I haven’t. I still want desperately to be the perfect Mom. But I can’t and it isn’t any deficit in me. It is an unattainable goal. It is not possible.

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I am the best Mom that I can be to my Little Bit. She loves me for who I am to her. She tells me almost every single day that I am, “the best Mommy she ever had.” Lol I realize there isn’t much competition in that arena but I’ll take it. I love her perfectly. No one can take that from me or from her.

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My kid has to be the BEST kid in the history of kids!!!!

Published December 30, 2013 by hrhdana

My kid has to be the BEST kid in the history of kids!!!!

No seriously, I mean it.

I know I’m supposed to be all modest and pretend that she isn’t the awesomest kid ever so that all the people whose kids aren’t as awesome as she is don’t feel bad but you know what? Not today. LOL Honestly, not any day. My kid rocks! I want her to know that I know that. I want her to feel my pride in her. When I think about the fact that 27 months ago she was inside of me, 37 months ago she didn’t even exist in this realm, and then I look at her now….it’s AMAZING! She.is.amazing!

This weekend there were constant examples of her greatness instead of power struggles over her jerkiness toddlerhood.  FIrst, I hurt myself. A drawer fell on my leg, breaking the skin and leaving me a pretty significant black and blue. Nia was playing in the closet right behind me. She heard me curse yell our in pain. She was immediately tuned in. Immediately concerned about me. As I bent over rubbing my leg and trying not to curse, she asked, “Are you okay mama?” The empathy, the concern, the love in her eyes rendered me speechless. I assured her that I was okay but I was still hurting. I went to the bathroom to wash off my leg and she was right behind me. She was rubbing me when she could and letting me know that, “You’ll be okay Mama.” I put a warm rag on my leg and it felt good. I went to sit down on my bed. A few minutes later there she was, with her Dora washcloth. “Can I help Mama? Let me make it better.” Her character shone through. Someone she loves was in pain and she wanted to help. *swoon*

Later we played the memory game. I wasn’t sure if she was ready. The age range on the box was 3 and up. I didn’t know if she was ready. We started with 8 cards. I explained the rules and we familiarized ourselves with the four images we would be searching for. She went first. She found the first two matches right away. Her face lit up. “I did it Mama!!!” “Yes you did baby. Now  you go again.” Do you know this child ran a Boston on me. LOL She won all four matches in one turn. That will teach me to underestimate her. By our second go round she was saying, “I’m good at matching because I’m a good rememberer.” “Yes you are baby.”

The next day was Sunday. She asked me to read her favorite book (this week) The Gruffalo. I read it three times and then I was done. She took off with her book under her arm to, “ask Daddy.” A few minutes later I hear her voice telling the story. Her Dad called me to, “come see our daughter.” I stand in the doorway of my bedroom watching her “read”.  She remembered read me the whole book. She did voices and inflections. She read with all of the emphasis that only book lovers understand. Her eyes were lit up and she was fully engaged. I was amazed. This little itty bitty person was fully engaged in a book.

Later we headed to Queens to get together with my Dad’s family for our post Christmas celebration. There were four other kids there (two boys, and two girls) with the youngest being about 5 and the oldest being about 11. She was the baby. Her cousin Rachel took her off to play. As I ear hustled and peeked in on her from time to time I watched her hold court. The youngest child there but she didn’t hesitate to share her opinion or muscle a toy out of an uncooperative friend’s hand. She was fire. She was sweetness. As they jostled for the mic for the karaoke machine, I started to intervene, only to see my child come away with the mic and belt out her rendition of jingle bells while the big kids laughed with her.

My kid has to be the BEST kid in the history of kids!!!!

I’m enjoying every moment! I burst with pride and love and absolute joy in her presence. The thought of her brings a smile to my face and warmth to my spirit. I’m so glad that I waited for her. I’m so grateful for her. I’m so proud to be her Mommy.

I’m not sticking any labels on her. I’m not making my expectations a mountain that she has to climb but I do have to pause to acknowledge her awesomeness. My constant companion, Doubt had to depart this weekend. Clearly, we are getting something right. 😉

Feel free to share some reasons why YOUR kid is awesome. Remember to let them know that you see their awesomeness. Celebrate their awesome!  Celebrate the things that you are getting right in your home. This parenting thing is hard. The choices we have to make seem endless. The mistakes we all make seem all encompassing. If you remember to live in the moment your kids will remind you…they get their awesome from you.

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Monday morning

Published August 5, 2013 by hrhdana

Good morning folks.

It’s about 9:30 on Monday morning. I had a really good weekend with my princess. Saturday we went to my cousin’s 25th birthday party at her house in Connecticut. It was awesome watching Nia running around playing with her cousins. It was wonderful seeing Desi in HER home, surrounded by her friends and family. Her happy is contagious and as usual she makes me want to burst with pride.

Sunday Nia and I spent some time at the Central Park Zoo. Boy was THAT an adventure! LOL I took her by train. If you are a native New Yorker you are already laughing at me. See, weekends is when the MTA does their work on train lines so trains will miss entire portions of their routes, while the work is being done. For a Mom, alone with an almost two year old, this means climbing up the steps to the train, riding the train for two stops, climbing down the steps from the train station to a  bus stop where they try to pack the capacity of an entire train in to the much smaller city buses. Luckily, we got a seat. But I felt like several people (and their luggage) were sharing my lap with my toddler.  A few blocks later you get to fight your way off of the bus and back  down the steps in to the train station. Of course Nia fell asleep as soon as we got on the first train so I now had the pleasure of carrying…(Strollers are for the weak or the smart-I’m not sure HOW that goes.)… a knocked out girl child up and down all of these steps in the sweaty train station and then WALKING from 59th and Lexington to the zoo entrance. Lord knows I have never wanted my child to wake up more than I did on that walk. LOL

But, we made it to the zoo and she was still sleeping so I sat on a bench in the zoo and waited for her to wake up. As soon as she heard some children’s voices she was up and ready to explore. We tore that zoo up and aside from my phone dying and a missed connection with an out of town friend it was an AWESOME day! I delivered her to my Mom and Dad for their weekly sleep over sleepy, full, happy and ready for quality time.

All in all it was a good weekend!

This weekend I did a lot of thinking about my life. I have been pretty hard on myself lately. I feel out of sorts. I feel like my life should be in much more order than it is. This weekend I realized (again) that I am wasting my todays stressing and it’s really silly. My life is what it is. I mean any life is what it is. You only get a certain amount of days and what you choose to do with them is up to you. I made a commitment to make better use of my days instead of worrying them away. I have a beautiful life and I should start acting like it. I need to stop waiting for the time when all my ducks line up and quack in sync and just enjoy the slightly out of tune symphony that I have.

Happy Monday everyone!!!

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Look I made ANOTHER blog on ANOTHER site. giggles

Published August 2, 2013 by hrhdana

Welcome. I’m so glad to see you. Please make yourselves comfortable. Please excuse my appearance as I am just getting set up over here. I have a bunch of blogs floating around cyberspace but I haven’t committed to blogging in one place since MySpace. I miss blogging. I miss writing. I miss the comments. I miss reading other blogs. MySpace made it so easy. I built some of the most important friendships in my life through that site’s blogs. sighs Oh the good old days!

Lately I feel like words are oozing out of my brain and I desperately want to catch them. I haven’t really committed to writing on a regular basis for a long time. I’m hoping that WordPress will be the right place and my new home.

I don’t really anticipate any strangers reading this. LOL I’m kinda thinking it will be a diary for a while with just me and the tumbleweeds. So I’ll spend some time decorating and exploring my new blog home. Anyone who knows me knows that I am no techie so that might take a while. LOL

Honestly my writing has been put on a total back burner since I had Nia. I waited a long time to have a baby so the past 22 months have been all about being Mommy. I love my new role. I love my kid. She’s seriously the best thing that ever came out of me. Ba-dum-bump Giggles But now I’m struggling to find a balance between Mommy and Dana. I’m struggling to find a way to honor the things that feed my soul while Mommying. Logically I know this will make me a better Mommy, but I haven’t quite figured out how this works practically. I’m sure I will write a lot about that here.

I’m also a poet. I love writing. I love performing. I love collaborating with other poets. I love listening to and reading other poets. Poetry has saved my life numerous times and in numerous ways. I miss writing for hours. That NEVER happens with a toddler around.

I think I’m done babbling for today. 🙂