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Shut Up And Drive

Posted on by danelle Posted in Family — No Comments ↓

It’s Sunday night and I’m rocking Tristan, our 8 month-old, to sleep in my arms. Tristan must fall asleep in someone’s arms or snuggled in bed next to someone (someone usually means me, but he will snuggle with Daddy, too). If you think Tristan is asleep, and you try to put him in his bed, and he really isn’t asleep… he will let you know how angry that makes him.  For. a long. time.

Tristan is the 4th and last child I’m putting to bed tonight.  My husband, Chris, is packing up the fettucine alfredo and grilled chicken I made for dinner to take for lunch tomorrow, and he’s doing the dishes while I get Tristan settled down.  We are both exhausted. Maybe I should start at the beginning of the past week…

We listed our house for sale with a realtor this week.  It had to look perfect so it could be photographed and perfect for showings. With four children, “perfect” is a very unnatural state for a house to be in. We have been cleaning nonstop all week. On Tuesday, I had to drive to the city we’re moving to so Chris and I could look at a house and put a deposit on it. Both older boys just started baseball so practices have been going on and the first game was Thursday night. My husband continues to commute 3 hours a day (until we move at the end of the school year).

On top of raising 4 children, a 3 hour commute, trying to sell our house, and moving to another city — my ex-husband is taking me back to court. Actually, he’s been taking me back to court continuously since our divorce (when I say continuously, I mean there has been LITERALLY a total of 18 MONTHS during which he was not attempting to take me to court for anything). You can’t reason with him. You can’t mediate or negotiate, or ask him nicely to stop. It’s ironic how some people can’t seem to figure out why their former spouse left them in the first place, while continuing the same kind of behavior that led to the divorce. But I digress. Anyway, the only reason this is relevant is that all my evidence — proving that I haven’t become a billionaire in the interim — was due during this busy week. I’m kind of upset that I had to spend a large part of my week printing out years worth of emails. I have a lot better things to do with my time. Soon, I’ll have so much experience being taken to court that I’ll be able to practice law myself 😉

But enough about that. Our daughter, Lainey, has been listening to the song, “Shut Up and Drive” by Rihanna nonstop. She heard the song in the movie “Wreck It Ralph” (when the little girl is learning how to drive a race car) and has been singing it and demanding that I play it on my laptop ever since.  But I can’t complain, because I would rather hear Rihanna than Barney or The Wiggles. Besides, I’m starting to tell myself that phrase when there’s too much going on, and I’m exhausted and I don’t think I can make it through another day of this rat race… too bad, Danelle. Shut up and drive.

Thursday night the real test of stamina began… I had already slept minimally all week… Chris was staying overnight in Cedar Rapids (an hour and a half from Dubuque) so he could work late and Devin, our 12 year-old, had a baseball game — which meant I would be watching all 4 children, including an infant and a toddler (who likes to run away), at the game by myself. Well… here we go — shut up and drive.

Somehow, I managed to see every one of Devin’s plays and at bats, while carrying Tristan, chasing Lainey and making sure Wesley (our 8 year-old) did not run off.

Lainey had found a group of 3 to 5 year-olds to play with and they were all climbing up and down a hill. Lainey, at not quite two years, was the smallest, and she stumbled and fell halfway up the hill.  A five year-old boy stopped and helped her to her feet. A little while later, Lainey fell again.  She lay sideways on the ground and yelled, “Help! Help!” until the little boy came and lifted her back onto her feet.  Not two minutes later, Lainey was on the ground — yet again — yelling, “Help!” and waiting for the little boy to save her.  What the heck?! Either our daughter has watched too many Disney Princess movies, or she already figured out, at not even two years-old, that boys like to help girls in need.  Either way, she had the “damsel in distress” routine down pat.  Good grief! Her dad already has intentions for her to never date anyone. Ever. In her life. This routine of Lainey’s might throw a wrench his plans… 😉

 

Devin’s team won 9 to 2 and we headed home after the game.  I had to feed the kids, clean up the house for the showings on Friday, fold 5 loads of laundry, finish printing out some documents, and patch some drywall before I could go to bed. It was two am when I finished patching the drywall and went to bed. Then Lainey and Tristan woke up 3 times between 2 am and 7 am when I had to wake up.  They both had colds and ear infections. Shut up and drive.

Friday the kids were off school.  The first showing was at 9 am and getting everything ready and all the kids into the car to leave in time was hectic to say the least.  I didn’t even try to feed them.  I would have had to wake up at 4 am to feed all of them and clean up in time for the showing (wait, I WAS up at 4 am desperately trying to get sick babies back to sleep so I could go back to sleep) so I took all the kids out to breakfast (after Wesley’s 9 am dentist appointment).  Then we ran errands the rest of the morning, then went home. Wesley wanted to blow out the scented candle I had lit for the showing that morning and I agreed.  He used a hurricane breath to extinguish the flame, and ashes flew all over the dining table.  “Oops,” he said. “I’ll clean that up, Mom.” I’m sure he felt he had to say something, considering the look on my face conveying that I did not understand how a person could create such a mess whilst blowing out a candle, but all I could think about was the even bigger mess that Wesley was going to make with the ashes while attempting to clean them up, so I told him thank you for the offer, but I would do it myself.

After being home for a few hours, we cleaned up the house again for an afternoon showing (you wouldn’t believe how quickly the house is destroyed with all the kids running around), then I piled the 4 kids into the car again and took them to the park while that showing was going on. Then Wesley’s friend came over to play for the evening. Then I went running 4 miles. Then everyone went to sleep… except Chris and I kept waking up with Tristan and Lainey and their ear infections. Shut up and drive.

I thought Saturday would be more relaxing.  We only had one early evening showing so we cleaned up in the afternoon. But I forgot Wesley had baseball practice at 3, and I was supposed to help coach. Also, Saturday evening was Easter Vigil mass, and Chris was being confirmed Catholic that night.  My parents drove up to watch the babies while Chris and I took our older boys to church.

We came home from mass to discover that my dad had set our lawn mower on fire. Never a dull moment here. He had been trying to fix it and suddenly our next door neighbor was running over to our yard with a fire extinguisher.  You know how these things go. (Okay, my dad is actually a genius at fixing things, and he normally doesn’t set them on fire, so I’m going to blame the cursed lawn mower, which has broken and had to be repaired almost every year since we’ve had it.) What kind of Easter Vigil would it be without a lawn mower going up in flames anyway? Shut up and drive.

It was 10:30 pm when my parents left and, even though I had every intention of being prepared to be the Easter Bunny… I wasn’t. Time for a trip to Wal-Mart.  The good things about going to Wal-Mart at midnight are that it’s not crowded and… that’s all I can think of. By the time I got home, put Easter baskets together, put candy in plastic eggs, and hid everything, it was 3 am.  I hoped my kids would sleep in Sunday morning.  They didn’t. I had to settle an argument over Easter eggs before the sun was completely up. Shut up and drive.

I was a zombie today… but then, it’s Easter, and Wesley used to think Jesus was a zombie because he rose from the dead, so maybe it’s fitting that I’m a zombie on Easter.  And the good thing about being a zombie, is that if there’s a zombie apocalypse, I’ll be able to hide out among them. The glass is half full.

Tonight, as I rocked Tristan to sleep, and wanted badly to go to sleep myself, I didn’t mind too much that Tristan needed to be rocked to sleep first. How much longer will he want to fall asleep in my arms? I will be reminiscing about these moments in a few years.

And now it’s midnight, everyone is sleeping, I’m done writing, and I can go to bed… except Tristan just woke up again…

Shut up and drive…

I couldn’t decide whether to call this post “Moving to Another City With 4 Children” or “I’m Having a Psychotic Breakdown”

Posted on by danelle Posted in Family — 2 Comments ↓

Today, we put a deposit on a house we’re going to rent in another city. As soon as school gets out, we’re moving.  My poor husband has been commuting 3 hours a day for a few years now, so moving is a good thing.

But it’s hard.

I’ve lived in two places in my entire life.  The town I grew up in, and the city I went away to for college.  I’ve lived in my home for 10 years and 3 of my 4 kids came home from the hospital to this house. My husband tries to understand, but it’s different for him.  He probably moved 10+ times before he finished grade school, and lived in multiple places as a young adult.

I don’t much like change.  I have my running route.  I have the place I like to get a muffin and a frozen hot chocolate, and my favorite parks. I have mom friends I count myself lucky to know — who else wants to chat endlessly about how crazy beautiful life with children is? And I’ve recently decided there are no front porches like my front porch, and my view of… a crappy road on a hill. The rest of the view is blocked by other houses.  It’s stunning.  I’m serious.  I will never find exactly that view. [Hey, City of Dubuque! If you’re reading this… my road could use to be refinished!]

My memories of my children are here.  Their tree house is here.  Maybe I can dismantle it and take it to the next house and put it back together in a new tree. A house full of furniture and 6 people’s belongings isn’t enough stuff to move yet.  Please let my husband know I’m volunteering him to move the tree house.

I’ve jumped on the trampoline at midnight here when my brain was going a million miles an hour and I couldn’t sleep.  I played basketball on the patio in the backyard.  My best friend lived next door to me here before she passed away. I’ve grilled supper out on the deck hundreds of times. I chased my boys around the yard when they were toddlers.  And chased them with water guns when they got to be school age. My oldest is as tall as me now and will soon be a teenager.

I’ve been cleaning the house like mad for the showings that will undoubtedly happen soon. If you’ve never tried to sell a house while four children are living there, I’ll enlighten you:  It’s like following a salt truck around trying to sweep up the salt and the truck keeps driving away dumping salt all over the place.  I may have already gone half mad from this routine. Possibly entirely mad.

Last night, as I cleaned until the wee hours of the morning (12 realtors were scheduled to tour our house today), I looked around and began to cry.  Everyone else was asleep.  Everything was spotless.  And everything was suddenly wrong. I must have sat down and bawled for an hour looking around our house and thinking about how, very soon, it will belong to someone else.  What the heck was my problem?  We’re moving where my husband has a career and will have opportunities for advancement.  We’re moving to a house where I’ll have an office to write in, instead of wherever I can sit between toys and kids on the floor with my laptop. We’re moving to a place where my husband will actually get to be home during the week instead of driving 3 hours a day round-trip. And this move is another step toward getting to the mountains permanently. So why couldn’t I quit crying like a big baby? I didn’t know… but I knew it was more than the fact that I’m running on barely any sleep lately… so I cried until I was exhausted, then went to bed.

While driving today, I suddenly realized that it’s not the house I’m so upset about.  I had thought it was too painful to let the house go because of the memories of my kids in it. But that’s not it.  It’s my older two kids.  They’re so big!  I didn’t know they would grow so quickly.  I didn’t know that, in the blink of an eye, they would go from me chasing them around on their tricycles, listening to their infectious toddler giggles, to me wishing they would tell me more than half a sentence about their day before they dashed out the door to their friend’s house. And how can my boys be riding mountain bikes with no training wheels?  When did that happen?!

I’m really upset because my boys are growing up too quickly!  Proud of them as I am, I’m also sad they don’t need Mom to kiss their owies anymore; that they are too big to pick up; that they don’t like being called my “babies”. (Tough about that 3rd one… they’re my babies. Always have been and always will be.)

Just as I realized what was really upsetting me, a song came on the radio…

“I hope you know, I hope you know
That this has nothing to do with you
It’s personal, myself and I
We’ve got some straightenin’ out to do

And I’m gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket
But I’ve got to get a move on with my life
It’s time to be a big girl now
And big girls don’t cry”

Oh. I guess big girls don’t cry.  Except sometimes. If they’re moms and they realize how fast their babies are growing up.

Hug your kids! Their childhood goes by too fast. And one day (too soon) I’m really going to miss them…

 

Dear God, Can I Be Princess Elsa When I Grow Up? (And Bless the Earth and Peace and Everything.) Amen.

Posted on by danelle Posted in Parenting, Snowboarding — No Comments ↓

Dear God,

Please could I grow up to be Princess Elsa? I want to have superpowers. Especially the power to make snow and ice fly out of my hands. I love snow probably more than anyone on Earth, and if anyone would make a good Princess Elsa, it would be me. I promise to use my powers for the good of all mankind — and maybe a teeny tiny powder day for my snowboard — but mostly for the good of mankind. And bless the Earth and peace and everything. Amen.

I was a little girl when my father told me that as he got to be ten or eleven, and realized he couldn’t grow up to be Superman, he was pretty upset.

What did he mean he couldn’t grow up to be Superman? I was going to be Wonder Woman. I just knew it. Or a singing mermaid. It was a hard decision.

As I watched “Frozen” tonight with my kids, my daughter was especially intrigued. She’s already into all things “pretty” and “princess”. As the horse in the movie galloped onscreen, my daughter (she’s almost two) galloped across the couch. When the princesses sang, my daughter serenaded us. Her lyrics were gibberish, but the girl has lungs 😉 I don’t know if she’ll grow up to be Wonder Woman, but a singing mermaid may be in the cards for her…

It was easy to go back in time and find my excitement for princesses, superpowers, magic… okay… I didn’t have to go back in time. I’m kind of still REALLY excited about princesses and superpowers and magic. I mean, it’s not like I did an online search for “Frozen princess toys” after the movie or anything. And if I did, it wasn’t for me. That ice palace is enchanting! I want one. For my daughter, of course.

But what are we doing to our daughters and sons with all these superhero and princess movies? Are we giving them lofty expectations? Setting them up for total disappointment? Why don’t we stick our children in front of a musical about an aspiring politician who sings, “Oh I just can’t wait to be king”?

And if I’m an adult with a husband, four kids, a mortgage… and I still want to be a princess/superhero — what’s wrong with me?

The answer is absolutely nothing. What we’re doing to our sons and our daughters is giving them imagination and dreams. Real life mirrors fantasy more than we let ourselves see.

I AM the princess of my castle, I married Mr. Incredible, and we’re raising three chivalrous, courageous knights and one charmingly intelligent, resourceful princess. I can’t shoot ice and snow out of my hands like Princess Elsa in “Frozen”… but I do take my children to play in the snow on a mountain. I didn’t pass the genes of invisibility and super speed to my children, like the Incredibles, but I taught them to read — and a person who can read can do anything. I don’t have magic healing hair like Rapunzel, but Power Ranger Band Aids abound, and if those don’t fix it, I know where to find a “magic” healing doctor. I don’t loose arrows on horseback like Merida, but my daughter will grow up watching her mother be brave.

Parents have superpowers. We really do. They haven’t been left to rot in the forgotten dreams of our childhood. We’ve had them all along. Only we don’t recognize our abilities, because we’re too busy listening to the world tell us that life is not magical.

Parents create the future. There has never been a more amazing superpower.

Twenty years after my father told me how disappointing it was when he found out he couldn’t grow up to be Superman, I have news for him: He did grow up to be Superman. And he married Superwoman. And they raised a brave princess who recognizes the superpowers we all have within ourselves.

Now recognize your own 😉 And pass them on to your children…

 

 

Epitome of Patience…

Posted on by danelle Posted in 2 — No Comments ↓

I was getting cramps and my husband was away for the night.  I knew he would feel terrible that he missed going to the store to buy tampons and chocolate almond milk for me.  It’s the highlight of his month.

So I loaded our four kids into the car and drove to the store to buy tampons and chocolate milk for myself.  Even after years of having to buy tampons, I still hate buying them.  When people see my husband buying tampons and chocolate, they think he’s a white knight, or at least husband of the year.  When people see a woman buying tampons, they start thinking they should be careful around you — in case you have a loaded gun.  That’s ridiculous.

Besides, I have four children, so on most days, I have more patience than most people in the world.  I was the epitome of patience as I put my baby and toddler into the grocery cart.  My 12 year-old and 7 year-old walked next to it.

But things started happening.  My children started begging for everything in the store, which made me want to pull my own hair out.  Then my 12 year-old grabbed a stuffed dog toy off the shelf and whacked his 7 year-old brother in the head with it.  Then my toddler didn’t want to stay in the cart.  Then my 7 year-old tried to ride on the side of the cart.  I asked him to stop.  He did it again.  Five more times.  By the time we got up to the register, I was screeching at him to get off the side of the cart before it tipped over.  As I set my tampons and chocolate milk on the counter to pay, I knew the checkout clerk was eyeing the tampons and wondering if I had a gun.  It didn’t matter that my son had actually done something annoying and dangerous six times and I finally had to raise my voice at him.  I was the crazy PMS lady — better ring her up as fast as possible and get her out of the store…

I’m not sure why my children were doing all these things to drive me nuts.  They’re usually wonderful at the store… or do I usually have more patience?

Once, a couple of months ago, my 12 year-old thought he was being kind and said, “Don’t worry, Mom.  I know you’re just having your grouchy time.”  I don’t know what he was talking about.  I don’t have a grouchy time.

My evening got much better as soon as I  put all the kids to bed and sat down to watch one of my shows with a 130 calorie Raspberry Cheesecake Jello dessert.  I may have had three of them and the caloric content may have been closer to 400.  My favorite show was a rerun, which made me angry at ABC.  Can’t they make one new show a week?!  Is it that hard?!  Then my husband texted me something about needing to discuss the budget for our upcoming snowboarding trip soon.  That really made steam come out of my ears!  Why does my husband always want to discuss budgets?!  He was really lucky he wasn’t at home.  This lady might have a gun.  I was out of Raspberry Cheesecake Jello desserts, but thank goodness there was plenty of chocolate almond milk left!

For the record… this time of the month doesn’t affect me whatsoever.

 

Husbands Take Care of Things Like Dead Body Smells

Posted on by danelle Posted in Funny — No Comments ↓

Nothing makes me more neurotic than cleaning our house up to try to sell it.  (Okay, a few things probably do, but I can’t think of them because I’m so neurotic right now.)  We had a showing scheduled for Saturday morning.  So naturally I was in neurotic cleaning mode Friday evening when my husband, Chris, came home from work.

I make lists.  It’s what I do.  There is nothing more satisfying than crossing something off my list when I finish it.  Chris has tried to get me to use Word documents or Excel spreadsheets instead of paper — to no avail.  I NEED my lists.

I was furiously scrubbing mud out of the carpet (some snowboard boots had forgotten to deposit themselves by the front door upon entering the premises) as Chris put his coat away and then picked up my list off the dining room table.

1. Vacuum downstairs

2. Vacuum upstairs

3. Polish floors

4. Dust

5. Organize Bookshelves

6. Smells like a dead body in the attic

Chris started to laugh.  It really wasn’t funny.  Nobody wants to buy a house with an attic that might be harboring a dead body.  Chris wanted to know what he was supposed to do about a dead body smell in the attic.  I told him that’s why he’s a husband and I’m a wife and husbands take care of things like dead body smells.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad and nobody will notice,” he reasoned.

“Have you ever smelled a dead body?!  It is the last smell on EARTH no one would notice!  Besides, I’ve located the origin.  It’s coming from the wall on the side of the attic steps.”

“So what do you want me to do?  Start ripping the drywall open with a crow bar?”  Chris wanted to know.

“Husband job.  I don’t care.  I don’t want my attic smelling like a dead body.  And if you rip the dry wall out, you have to repair it before tomorrow morning.”

Chris returned to reading my list…

7. Clean up kitchen

8. Polish appliances

9. Take hampers down to basement

10.  Bag of crap in front of the house??

Chris was laughing again.  You see, this bag has been my nemesis for 6 months.  It began as a bag of yard waste that we forgot to put out for collection.  Then it sat by the front corner of our house for a few weeks and got rained on, becoming too heavy to move.  Then it snowed and the bag froze.  Then the snow melted and it ripped in half, the contents spilling into a pile on our brick patio.  Every time I get in my car and drive away from our house and every time I return home I glare at that bag of crap.  But I’m a good wife so I haven’t nagged my husband about it.  Did you ever take really good care of the rest of the yard work but there’s one thing that neither of you wants to touch?  That bag has become our one thing.  The two halves of the split bag have even managed to drift apart now and look like two separate piles of crap.  Now we really look like lazy bums!  One pile of crap in front of your house might be acceptable.  Two piles is pushing it. Our neighbors probably want to burn a pile of crap on our front porch.

Well, I didn’t have time for laughing about piles of crap.  I had things to clean.  I was running all over, cleaning products in hand, barking orders to my husband and kids.  Then I had to stop and tell my husband how to use the vacuum.

“You have to adjust the vacuum height to match the height of the rug or you’re going to suck the area rug up into the vacuum!”  I was really freaking out thinking about the possibility that he might break my vacuum and I wouldn’t be able to vacuum the rest of my house before people come to look at it.

“Relax… not everybody can be as –”

“OCD?!  I know!!!”  I lamented.  I really could use another family member that’s as OCD as me.  Sometimes, in order to live in a house with adolescent boys, I have to close my eyes and pretend I don’t see the things I see.  Otherwise I could have nightmares about the state their rooms and the bathrooms get in.

My family thinks I don’t know what a kick they get out of me running around eradicating every speck of dirt from our house like I’m prepping to perform surgery in a clean room.  I knew.  I didn’t care.  I had appliances to polish.

Later on, it was after midnight, and I was finishing up shining the floors.

Chris came over to heckle me.  “Do you remember last summer when you were so pregnant and our upstairs bathroom stopped working?”

Did I remember???  It’s the stuff that haunts my dreams.

I was 8 months pregnant with my 4th child during the hottest part of the summer.  (My 3rd and 4th pregnancies were back to back, so I had literally been pregnant for YEARS.)  Our upstairs toilet broke and also leaked through the floor (so it was not a minor fix, the whole floor had to be ripped out and replaced along with the toilet).  I was waking up 8+ times a night to pee and having to walk downstairs to use the bathroom on the first floor.  Then, when my husband and father-in-law put a new toilet and floor in, Chris picked out the tallest toilet manufactured EVER.  Chris is six-four.  I am barely above five-two.  As he was asking me if I liked the new toilet (so proud of it was he), I told him that I might, if my feet could touch the ground while I was using it.  It’s hard enough balancing on a toilet when you’re 8 months pregnant.  Fearing you will tip off the toilet because your husband purchased said toilet from the Jack and the Beanstalk Giant’s estate sale, is what every pregnant woman dreams of…

Chris was retelling the story and just getting to the part about how my feet couldn’t touch the ground.  “You were such a cute roly poly short pregnant chub–”

If looks could kill.

Do not tease your wife about what a pregnant chubber she was when she’s shining floors into the early morning hours.   Especially don’t tease her about how she was so roly poly she nearly fell off the skyscraper toilet.  Fortunately, this OCD former pregnant chubber has a sense of humor.

The people really liked our house the next day, and didn’t mention anything about a dead body smell in the attic.  Maybe they’ll buy it.  Of course, it would have to be written into the purchase agreement that the piles of crap in front of the house would be removed from the premises prior to closing… 😉

We’ll sneak the dead body out in the middle of the night sometime before we move.

7 Year-Old Wesley

Posted on by danelle Posted in Snowboarding — No Comments ↓

Wesley is the smallest kid on the Tyrol Basin freestyle team. An exception was made to allow him on the team at five years old. Three years later (at age 7) he still doesn’t meet the minimum age requirement of 8 years-old, but is a beloved member of the team. Click the link to see the full news story and interview on Eastern Iowa’s NBC affiliate, KWWL…

http://www.kwwl.com/category/130142/video-landing-page?clipId=9927890&topVideoCatNo=131576&autoStart=true

Good luck at Nationals, Wesley!

I Wanna See You Be Brave

Posted on by danelle Posted in Uncategorized — No Comments ↓

“Say what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave
With what you want to say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave”
— Sara Bareilles

I used to believe I had to make EVERYONE happy.  I was not allowed to make ANY mistakes, and if I made one, the world deserved an explanation of what led me there and a promise to be better.  I even apologized for other people’s mistakes and misdeeds.

I had to judge myself by everyone else’s standards and when I couldn’t meet all of them, I judged myself to be a malfunctioning human being.

If someone was angry at me, it meant there was something wrong with me.  If someone close to me was unhappy, I almost always blamed myself.  If I said something people didn’t like or didn’t want to hear, I regretted it and was ashamed.  How could I say something that people wouldn’t like?  Shame on me for not making everyone happy all of the time.  I needed to do better.

There were people along the way who perpetuated my unforgiving self view and fed their egos on the collapse of my own.  Anyone who says words don’t hurt is foolish.  Words can be the worst form of abuse.  Psychological abuse cuts you up from the inside — particularly if you are prone to empathy.

Empathy has always been my strength and crippling weakness.  Even my anger turns to empathy.  I have empathy for people who’ve carried out some of the worst things I’ve ever experienced.

I was 26 years-old before I began to break this cycle and listen to my own feelings.  You can only make everyone else happy for so long.

Now I’m saying what I want to say.  And if someone doesn’t like it, that’s okay.  And if someone doesn’t like ME… that’s okay, too.  I am not solely responsible for the happiness of others; the people who fed on putting me down have been extricated from my life.

While I still care greatly about other people’s feelings, and try not to hurt anyone, I no longer cater to those feelings at the cost of my own.   I won’t sacrifice myself on the alter of endless empathy.

There’s a name and a disorder for everything these days, but I haven’t yet heard of a classification for having too much empathy.  Maybe this disorder is next for the American Psychological Association 😉

A sign of maturity is to put another before yourself —  however difficult it may be.  More daunting a task, is to find a balance so that you are not putting another before yourself at the PRICE OF SELF.  For a compassionate person, standing up for other people is often easier than standing up for yourself.

I love this song…

“I wanna see you be brave” 😉

Love Is NOT a Feeling

Posted on by danelle Posted in Marriage — No Comments ↓

The movies really get it wrong.

Of course, I love a romantic story as much as the next girl, but it’s dangerous to believe that — in real life — relationships are lifelong, endless romance.  We are setting ourselves up for big time failure if that is what we have come to expect.

Our toddler was sick Monday and Tuesday, and our infant got sick on Thursday.  By Thursday afternoon, I was getting sick from taking care of them.  Thank goodness for my husband.  He drove home an hour and a half from work, picked up our 7 year-old, and then drove another 2 and half hour round trip to transport him to snowboard team practice in Wisconsin.  He knows how distraught I become when I can’t get the kids to their things.  My husband arrived home around 10:30pm.  I was already in bed — with our infant sleeping next to me — feeling half dead.  Then our toddler woke up screaming.  She was sick again.  My husband didn’t even ask me to take care of her.  He cleaned her up, threw her sheets in the wash, put new ones on her bed, and got her back to sleep.  Then he lay down next to me and rubbed the back of my head for a few minutes before he fell asleep (he knew I had a migraine headache on top of being sick).  He woke up at 6am to drive an hour and a half to work on Friday.

This is love.  This is the kind of love that should be in the movies.  Love is an action word.

We grow up believing love is a feeling — an adjective to describe this floaty, dreamy ideal.  It isn’t.  Love is — by virtue of what love means — a verb.  Love is sacrifice and service — often for nothing in return, but to know that the people you are loving’s needs are met.   Love as an action is TRUE LOVE.

Where true love exists, true romance abounds.  Any woman will admit to falling in love with her husband more intensely (and all over again) as she watches his selfless love for their children and for her.

I don’t know if my husband knew he was causing me to fall more in love with him than ever with his actions…

… or if he just wanted me to eat my words for writing this. 😉

But I have never felt more loved.

PS.  My husband at least got to eat BBQ pulled pork for dinner (I made it for him earlier in the day before I got sick) and he took the leftovers for his lunch the next day.  I try to love him, too 😉

Measuring Tough

Posted on by danelle Posted in Marriage — No Comments ↓

I have long been convinced that women are the tougher sex.  Sure, men have their brute strength — but I woke up EVERY hour with an infant who had chronic ear infections EVERY night for a YEAR.  How many men do THAT?  I care for 4 children when I’m sicker than a dog and all I want to do is sleep for 5 days straight.  If my husband gets sick, he sleeps like the dead until he feels better.  (I saw a similar phenomenon with my tough-as-nails father when I was growing up.)  Men are the biggest babies EVER when they are sick or injured.  If men and women had to alternate having babies there would never be more than 3 children in any family.  No man would go through pregnancy and childbirth twice!

I guess it depends on what you’re using to measure, because women certainly can’t squat 400 pounds (at least I know I can’t), but when it comes to patience, empathy, and stamina in really tiring situations… women are pretty tough.

I had things I needed to do today.  Instead, I cleaned up throw up.  Four times.  My husband discovered the 4th instance of puke at 8:30pm (our toddler had thrown up in her bed for the 2nd time) and he managed to carry her to the bathtub before yelling down the stairs for me to help.  Never mind that I was feeding and putting our 6 month old to bed.  And I had already been on clean up duty 3 times.

I got our 6 month old to sleep and headed upstairs to assess the damage in our toddler’s bed.  She only has to sleep with 27 stuffed animals, so it’s not just a matter of changing a sheet… as I dumped a sheet, a blanket, and multiple stuffed animals — I guess she also had two Barbies in the there that I need to wash — my husband carried our freshly bathed toddler back into her room.  He stuffed her nightgown into my garbage bag and grabbed a clean Disney Princess nightgown for her.

“What I really want to know,” I pondered, “is why I can clean puke up 3 times all by myself while you’re at work, but when you’re home, I have to put the baby to bed and then come up here and clean up the 4th throw up mess, too?”

“I know you think I’m incompetent, but actually I don’t know where things are.  You put everything away so… it’s kind of hard for me to put a sheet on her bed or find her blankets.”

I grabbed a clean, folded blanket off the top of the dresser as my husband said this.  “I see.”  I threw him the blanket.

“Really,” my husband said.  “I can’t take care of things around here because I don’t know where anything is or how you want me to do it.”  The ceiling fan was on high to dry the mattress I had just washed and he reached up to turn it off.  Except he kept pulling the string too many times and turning it back on again.

Nope.  Not incompetent 😉

Our 7 year-old, Wesley, was waiting for me to say prayers with him, so I carried my garbage bag full of dirty laundry out of our toddlers room, set it at the top of the stairs, and headed to Wesley’s room.  Wesley finished his prayers and told me the worst part of his day and his favorite part of the day.  Then I kissed him good night and walked back out into the upstairs hallway… the garbage bag was still sitting at the top of the stairs, though my husband was nowhere to be found.  I grabbed the garbage bag again and carried it down to the first floor.  My husband was in the kitchen.  “You missed this.”  I waved the garbage bag at him.  He grinned.  He knew he left it there on purpose.  He knew I wouldn’t let stinky throw up laundry sit at the top of the stairs.

I carried the garbage bag to the basement and dumped the contents in the washing machine.   Then back up to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of juice.  My husband came up behind me and hugged me.  I couldn’t see him, but I just knew he was grinning and so amused with himself.  Then he said, “I could help out more around the house… but I wouldn’t want you to run out of things to do.  You might get bored.”  This was really funny to him and he couldn’t stop laughing.  My husband knows I have PLENTY to do — probably enough to do to last me three lifetimes — and he does help out around the house, but he likes to tease me.  Most of the time he just wants to see what I’ll say back.  I always have something to say back…

“I was thinking the same thing about sex,” I replied.  “I wouldn’t want you to have too much of it. You might get bored.”

This reply made him laugh even more. “Touche, touche.”

I really don’t mind that he’s so amused… so long as he knows that I’m waaaaay tougher than he is when it comes to cleaning up puke.  And always will be.

UPDATE: My husband stayed home the next day to take care of his sick toddler princess.  He definitely gets some tough points for being the kind of daddy who does that.  Awwwwww…

 

I’m Your Mother, Hear Me Roar

Posted on by danelle Posted in Parenting — 2 Comments ↓

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech youll ever regret love quote

I was up until 12:30am working on my computer last night.  This morning, I woke up, fed a toddler and a baby, took my 7 year-old to school (thankfully, he can feed himself… well, there were empty oatmeal wrappers all over the counter, and one bag of oatmeal he had ripped open though not eaten, but I did not have to spoon the oatmeal into his mouth, so it counts!)… then I came home, put the baby in his swing and the toddler in her crib with toys so they would both be amused long enough so that I could shower.  They were not amused.  But their lungs got some exercise, and I was able to wash my hair.  I did not have time to dry or brush my hair, but I’m used to looking like Cousin It these days.

I then packed the baby and toddler, and diaper bag back into the car to go to a doctor’s appointment.  If you have never packed a baby, a toddler and a diaper bag into a car for a trip, I’ll elaborate for you.  Imagine carrying three quarters of your house out the door with you while one of those quarters screams, “No coat!  No boots!  No go!”  One quarter of your house then tries to struggle out of your arms because that one quarter house is determined to stay home.  Meanwhile, half your house becomes high risk for being dropped down the steps along with the surly quarter who has spotted her sippy cup in the diaper bag and is now screaming, “Mine!” in addition to struggling.  Then the quiet quarter of your house in his car seat has a plumbing malfunction.  You must go back inside with three quarters of your house and fix the quarter that malfunctioned with supplies from the quarter that thankfully is inanimate (though awfully heavy).  Then begin again carrying three quarters of your house back outside.  If I am ever less than 10 minutes late somewhere I call it a success.  My husband doesn’t call it a success, but I told him that when I want to know what he calls things I’ll ask.

Imagine the above routine every time you exit your house, enter your vehicle, exit your vehicle, enter your destination, exit your destination, reenter your vehicle, exit your vehicle, reenter your house.  This routine is kicking my butt.  Can I go to basic training instead?  I will take a drill sergeant screaming at me over a toddler tantrum when I’m trying to get somewhere any day!

After the doctor, back home to feed the babies lunch, then to my friend’s house so she could babysit while I went to physical therapy (car accident 7 months ago).  Then pick the babies up from the sitter.  Then pick the older boys up from school.  Then after school snack.  Then pile the babies and 7 year-old into the car to drop the 7 year-old off to snowboard with his friend.  At this point, my 12 year-old wanted to stay home rather than drag around with his siblings.  I agreed, but left him a couple chores and told him to do his homework.

On the way home from the snowboard hill, I had to stop at the grocery store.  My toddler screamed “HI!” at everyone our cart passed and sang the “Because I’m happy” song over and over.  Fortunately, this entertained the baby for the duration of the shopping trip… unfortunately, everyone in the store knew when our cart was within 100 feet of their vicinity and turned to stare. After I paid, my toddler screamed, “BYE!  BYE!  BYE!” to the whole store.  Then she screamed because she didn’t want to go in her car seat.  (Out of 4 children, she’s my only girl.  Someone should have warned me about the high pitched screams of toddler girls…)

I arrived home and my 12 year-old had not done his homework.  He had not done his chores.  He was watching Pokémon cartoons as he lounged on the couch and had eaten the entire CARTON of goldfish crackers — the ones I use to pacify my toddler.

Steam poured forth from my ears whilst my eyes began to glow…

Then I turned into a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  (For my neighbors who wondered about the hole in the side of our house).

You would think my scientific brained son would appreciate it that his mother can turn into a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  He doesn’t.  But I’ve never seen the garbage taken out faster.

The positive aspect about turning into a Tyrannosaurus Rex is that  a T-Rex doesn’t say much — they just roar, and people know they mean business.

A roar is better than hurtful words.  Kids internalize hurtful words.  We all internalize hurtful words.

A roar says, “I’m angry right now.”  Hurtful words say, “There’s something WRONG with YOU.”

Choose carefully when you’re angry… or “make the best speech you’ll ever regret.”

 

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