Lets Get it, TOGETHER!

Alright, alright, settle down..

The kids are all finally asleep..im writing this from my phone so bear with me if it doesn’t come out esthetically correct (c’mon you’re here for more than that)…

Its been an exhausting three days, sort of half way through the week..but when you’re a stay-at-home-mom, the week ending and the weekend finally being here doesn’t really make much of a difference in my books. The only thing that gets a break is the drop-off, pick-up errand, everything else stays the same and more things get added on, like laundry!

Ugh, lots of friggin’ laundry! What in the heavens, did they strike a deal with the laundry god and he’s all bitter about some next dryer lover who broke his heart and now he punishes us moms with a mountain of laundry on a weekly basis? I personally am not the type to do a load a day..i feel like it drives me nuts, having to remember and forget the damn loads. So i prefer the weekends to dedicate to laundry..however many I get done on whatever day. All i know is it gets done. 

I also do major grocery shopping on the weekend..for all necessary lunches, meals, and whatever I’ve forgotten on my short-runs throughout the week. I go out during the week for small purchases like milk, eggs, bread, and produce. So the weekend is nice for stocked fridge! 

I have feel feeling extra beat this week, maybe because we had two of my kids birthday over the weekend, and the in-laws were over. I mean one night, almost 2 days is really not that long but its exhausting! I think because I’ve only ever fancied having people at my house, now that we could house extended persons, I’m not used to it. I mean my hands were nonestop under running faucet, and at the end of Saturday night, they were dry and hurting I couldn’t open a gatorade bottle. So leading into this week, i was already done before it could even start! 

So obviously you’re kinda seeing through my rant that this leads to a question someone else asked…

I am part of a few mom groups on facebook (yes, yes i am. Let me know if you want in *insert nose rub here*). I am because being a sahm is lonely at times and the only other adult conversations i have are done with my fingers (wait a second don’t take that the wrong way), even laughing because being able to share experiences, relate, get advice is all that easy and hard at the same time. 

So one of the members post: 

“I am a stay at home mom, in your opinion should the home maintenance load be shared with your husband if he’s working full time? Or should i take it all as my responsibility since i dont work? My husband is great at picking up after himself but thats usually all he does”

Some of the response in the first few were all summed-up to, “well my husband works 50-60 hr work weeks, and he plays with the kids” or “we made a deal before the baby that I’d stay home and he’d work” or “he works really long hours, so i do most of it and thats fine”…ok back it up for a second. I know that i’m as guilty as some of these women, defending my husband-to-be, enabling the idea that because he works that many hours a week, he’s exhausted and im the one who halfly volunteered to stay home because, i just had the baby but, it does not mean he is cut-off from all other responsibilities. 

I am one person, who wears many hats. Yes hunny, i understans your 11 hrs-12 hr shifts a day are super exhausting and draining. It all is in the type of job too..but i work 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, with no benefits, no pay, no bonus, no paid time off, no vacation days. So I hope to god, you’ll find extra strength in you to help me around the house and with the kids after you get home. Of course, only if you love me enough. If not well i guess you’re just in this for insurance money. 

I disapprove of us women having to always defend our partners because we love them and our status in the workforce is “big heart, keep taking, i will always love you”. Please, do yourself a favour..love yourself first, understand to a degree that just because you’re the one already home it doesn’t mean everything else should fall on you! This is a partnership between two people who before kids, were considerate of each other, made sure they were ok emotionally, physically, and everything in between. 

If we as women do not fight for this as their ‘better half’ then we falter in our roles. We falter in our care for ourselves, because we burn out faster. We falter in our ability to lead with love and not resentment. We falter to forget our relationship and the bond that binds it because well at the end of everyday what is left of you, is the tiny spec on the wall that wasn’t covered by god knows what. That spec, thats tired, thats drained, that smell, thats lonely. There has to be a balance between the people who run a family. I’m not a single mom, i am in a relationship that nurtures my ability to love. Then if all the gods, in heaven agree, i must take care of those abilities by not grinding it down to the ground. 

I get it, we’re all entitled to view this sahm differently..but i have to put it out there. This is a partnership, whether it is i am the one at home full-time or vice versa. If working moms could still half-ass manage home too, then so can dads. Its the effort. Its the that part of the working individuals who have a family that remembers to fight for that still because this is not the cot damn 50’s! 

MM, out

It weighs less to stop thinking too much

I’ve often found my past to be a neusance. It appears in moments like a puzzled film. It captures the state of my current heart only to fracture what I’ve managed to heal back together. I often like to dwell in pretending I’m some kind of superhero who can heal myself, with whatever kind of wounds that ceases my being in times when I’m strong. And one thing that always breaks me down; in moments of their weakness are my children.

I thought about the instances I’ve recently found myself in. Moments that wiggle themselves out from negative vibes. More recently it seems, I’ve a harder time finding the patience, understanding and courage to assess what’s happening with my son. He sits at number seven, and finds himself in the state of ‘bad to the bone’. I’m at my wits, trying to figure out how to ‘fix’ what’s being broken. Perhaps, I’m losing sight at the strands of what breaks him. Perhaps my visions are what needs fixing rather than catching only what he breaks. 

My son is the most sweetest, kindest, purest heart I’ve ever come to know (with the exception of my two girls who share this heart). His smile, it literally lifts you up from the pits of darkness one has managed to find themselves imprisoned in. His love for fun, intimidates ones very being because, sometimes when you’ve transformed into an adult, you lose your sense of innocence. I find its harder for me to sift through my chaos, to connect with him in his state of cognitive process. 

Tonight, a fellow blogger (@mikemadigan) made me see things in a different tone. 

It’s been stated many times before, ‘being a mother is hard’. It’s even more difficult when you’ve got demons you’ve yet to face. Perhaps what holds me back are my annoying fears, that like to sneak up to remind me I’ve got changes to stamp in the present, so that tomorrow may not sting as much. What I don’t realize is how much my vision of tomorrow, breaks my present time. 

We could all use a little less thinking and a little more feeling.

After all, those are the basis in which my son mostly functions in. I’ve forgotten to feel, so much so, he’s slowly drifting from me.  My very fear in being a mother. 

I shall stop blaming my past, and work on the now. My son deserves better! 

I’m hungry. It’s too late to snack. Tomorrow I’ve an hour of spare with Pami. I’m taking her for a drive again.
xo, MM

It’s always, YOUR TIME

I was sitting in bed last night contemplating whether or not to turn the fan on in the room. And suddenly I realized how lucky I am. I am sitting there with a controller for the fan that sits above us. No I didn’t need to get up to press a button, or turn a switch on. I could sit in bed and have this controller do it for me. I got to thinking about how J and I started…

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J and I lived in Scarborough, ON while I was pregnant with Apollo. J worked as a Reservations Manager, and I as customer service rep for U-Haul. I lost my job, for some petty stuff, and we had to make due with J bringing in the one income. We eventually moved in with his parents, to help with cost, just a few months before I was due to have Apollo. I remember J telling them I was pregnant. It was the most difficult thing in the world for him to do at the time. While I was twenty, and he was twenty-three, we weren’t financially stable. This was our fear for starting a family, as well as  his parents’. We understood that. But this wasn’t a yes or no answer. This was a moment in both our lives we had to stand-up to our responsibilities and move forward from there. For those thinking ” You could have had an abortion.”, this was not an option for either of us. My beliefs are strong with life-changing situations such as this, and I wasn’t going to be selfish and run away.

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When Apollo was born, J had taken parental leave to help me with the first few months of caring for a baby. After all, I had no clue what to do. I don’t have siblings, never did I have to take care of a baby alone. While my experiences in babysitting my little cousins, and baby nephews and nieces, it was a completely different experience to care for my own baby. Luckily J had a baby brother, who was sixteen years younger than him. He had gained experience in diaper changing, feeding, and changing clothes of a tiny baby. I, on the other hand, was too afraid to touch the baby. So him being home helped a lot. But this meant what he was earning was cut to almost half of what it was before. He didn’t earn much at U-Haul to begin with. When he returned to work, I had to be home alone with a newborn baby. This proved to be the most difficult thing in the world. But in moments as such, you find your way. You figure it out. You do what you can. Luckily his work moved closer to where we had moved and it was an easier commute for him.

It wasn’t easy sharing living space with his family. Personalities butt heads, and decision making was difficult for our little family, when you’ve got to be considerate of others. In times when we would fight, it would become embarrassing when we’re yelling at each other and trying to figure out our way together. When you first start a family, it’s not easy. You’re both learning to live together, both learning to do things together. You’re understanding responsibilities together and it puts strains on your relationship. We had to work on this, however way we had to, as long as we figured it out.

When Apollo was five months, we decided it was time for us to take charge of our lives, live through the choices we’ve made, and do our best to do things on our own. Well, we still required help from our families. It got really hard financially. J’s income for two weeks was the amount of what we had to pay for rent. We had gotten a car because we needed to get around and that added on to our costs per month. We had less than the bills we’ve accumulated. We were deep in waters, way above the waist. I had applied for a job at Tim Hortons, because I hadn’t gone to post-secondary studies to have a career. When would I have been able to find the time? That’s the mentality you have when you don’t know any better.Thankfully his uncle, and sometimes my Dad, would help babysit Apollo. This job helped a tiny bit with costs but it still wasn’t enough. Even worse, we had gotten into a car accident, had to get rid of the car, and now we’re down to one income again. J was injured and had to take leave from work. It was one unfortunate event after another. We had a couple floods occur during the few years we lived in that basement apartment. There wasn’t enough money to re-direct to various places. We were late on rent payments, struggled with all our other bills, and could barely afford the luxuries we took for granted when we were single. We ended up having to move back to his parents house again. One night, an infomercial on the television for post-secondary education had popped up while Apollo slept. We were sleeping in the living room on a blow-up bed, since J’s room had become a storage room shortly after we moved out. I thought about it in that moment, ” What would it take for me to upgrade my skills and provide a better life for our family?” I was set on going to school from that point on. Apollo was two and a half. I applied to Humber College and from there we had to move forward. We found an apartment north of where we were which would provide a closer distance from the school I would eventually attend. School was to begin in May and I had to figure out what I would do with Apollo while we were both gone. J had returned to work, and I was going to need someone to watch Apollo. My dad had offered; after a while it was no longer possible. Apollo would eventually turn four and he would require some type of social experience. We opted for child care. The good thing about being in Canada is you get some kind of help with child care fees. We were able to put Apollo in childcare without breaking our banks with the cost because most of the fees have been covered by child care assistance from the government. I felt at ease, knowing someone is watching Apollo while I was in school and J at work. But the feeling of being incapable of caring for my own child was always there. I had to do what I had to do. I worked really hard as a student, and in the end I attained Honours in Early Childhood Education. I graduated Honours.

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After completing my post-secondary studies, I began working part-time, while J worked full-time still at U-haul. Things got complicated for us at that time, because as much we have finally accomplished one of our many goals, he was beginning to hate his job. Five years at U-Haul, it felt like forever. It felt like he wasn’t going anywhere with working there. He felt stuck. He felt unhappy. He didn’t feel like it was enough to provide for his family. We had gotten into a huge fight one night, most likely because his unhappy attitude effected his home life. I’ve had it with the fights and arguments. I needed him to get better. I needed him to be happy again. I needed him to be the J I know. He was lost, far in there, hoping to be saved. Well he’s not one to ask to be saved. I couldn’t save him. I had one thing left to help him. Being the paper-hoarder that I am. I loved keeping papers in boxes for no reason. I had kept his acceptance letters from colleges when he first graduated from high school. WELL before we had Apollo. In this file was a variety of different types of programs he applied for, not knowing exactly what he wanted to do. A few of his options were, Fashion Design, Electro-mechanical Engineering Technician, Business Administration, and a few other ones. Well, I wasn’t too fond of Fashion Design. I had no clue what Electro-mechanical Engineering was, and he’s already had a go at Business Administration and didn’t like it. So he had to choose. I gave him that night to figure it out. It was four in the morning, and he was concerned about what we were going to do for him to achieve this. Well, I had taken out a loan from the government to pay for my studies until I was finished. It was a debt, I was willing to take for the sake of achieving an education to better our lives. J had to do the same. We were about to venture into more hardships and sacrifices to achieve one more goal from our list. We had to move again, Apollo would be starting Jr. Kindergarten at a new school. We moved back around his parents and lived in a much better apartment with two bedrooms. It seemed big for our little  family. I worked and J went to school. We were doing what we can with the income I had, and sometimes we still needed help.

J’s program ran for three years. The first two years happened so fast and just before fourth semester in his second year, we found out we were pregnant with a second baby. This was tough. It was about to get even harder financially. But the thought of being blessed with another child was everything for J and I. We were ecstatic. We knew that it was going to be difficult after she was born  but we were going to do whatever it took, as we have always done in any difficult situations we found ourselves in.

J had a couple of semesters left to complete, before we could get our lives going accordingly. It was tough being home alone most of the time to tend to the kids. I’d have the responsibility of taking Apollo to school, and picking him up after school. I’d have to tow Artemis in a stroller with me, get home do some house chores. Sometimes I’d be too exhausted to keep up with the cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc., but I’d pick-up where I’ve left off and continue. Sometimes I wonder how J and I did it. How we managed all this time to do what we had to do for our family. I don’t guarantee that there were never fights or misunderstandings. There were plenty of that to go around. But just like in everything else in life, stress is rooted from the overwhelming loads of responsibilities. Then just before J was to finish his third year, we were granted another blessing, Cassiopeia. She came, just in time for the transition of all the new changes we were about to venture into. J finished school. Honours, at that. I am so proud of what he has accomplished thus far. He has worked hard in everything. The demands were a lot, even for any other persons, but he did his best at all turns. I am so proud to be his partner through this adventure. While it was all hard and we struggled through and through, we have completed our five year goal, from the time I decided to pursue post-secondary education, to J completing his program. We had achieved a house, and a career to be proud of.

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Life isn’t easy. But if you try your best for any cause, I can guarantee you the outcome is that much sweeter. There is no good in giving up. You will fall time and time again, but if you get up, just get up, you’ll succeed in whichever way. Trust that you can, and believe that you will. It’s that important, to give yourself the chance. If it doesn’t work the first time, try again, you’ll always get an outcome. Good or bad, what have you got to lose?

 

 

 

 

 

“The starting point of any achievement is desire”

 

 

xo, MM

tomorrows sunshine

For the sake of memories. For the sake of being able to scream, and daily, confess the love for the blessings of being a mom.

For as long as I can remember, I wasn’t a celebrated child. I didn’t have birthday parties, every year, nor had one because I meant a lot to someone. I had a couple that i recall; for the sake of photos that’ll eventually find its way to my adopted father, elsewhere in the world. I wasn’t treasured, the way you treasure someone, with tangible memories like photographs, or letters, or daily blogs of confessions about how much they are loved and cared for.

I wasn’t fussed over. I wasn’t valued. I wasn’t worth enough, for anyone to claim me. I wasn’t enough, for someone to ‘keep’ me. No one cried for me. No one hurt for me. No one would have given their life for me, the way you do when you love someone so much.

Because of this…

I am one of those individuals, who flood your Facebook news feed, instagram, twitter, and tumblr, of photographs, status’, notes, and shared articles about my children; about having children; about being a mom; about the struggle of being a parent; about the chaos of marriage, and everything in between. I AM THAT INDIVIDUAL, because I want to be able to look back at the memories I’ve built with my family. I want my children to be able to find these memories when they’ve grown, and one day they’ll wonder what, who, how, why, they are who they are. It isn’t merely for the sake of bombarding others, or attempting to show I’m better than anyone, or that my family values are better than yours. I do this for me. I do this for the legacy of my family . I do this so that my children will remember to value what is most important in our family, each other. I do this so that they remember what it means to fight for those you love, to always give heart, to always be humble, to find meaning in real life, and so much more.

One day my children will have questions. One day they’ll wonder about all sorts, one day these memories will become reminders, it may bring us together when time is distant, or when our minds have found heart elsewhere. It will rekindle deeper appreciation for one another when that is lost or forgotten, it may be a light that helps redefine relationships in each of our lives, maybe it’ll help recall values, or find comfort, bring smiles, provide happy tears, but one thing for certain, it will always bind us together, always and forever.

 

xo, MM

 

Repost from Tumblr – December 23, 2015

Am I doing this right?

In the chaos of motherhood, you rarely get to sit alone, to ponder about whether or not you’re doing this ‘job’ right. There have been so many moments in motherhood where I question my parenting methods. Am I too strict? Am I allowing my children to learn on their own with my guidance? Am I dictating, rather than helping them grow through their own experiences? 

My children: Apollo, 7 / Artemis, 17 mos / Cassiopeia, 3 mos.

The gap between Apollo and Artemis are quite big. Big in terms of the type of experiences they’re going through. Apollo is in grade 1. His experiences are mostly brought on from his social relationships. Being able to be out there to meet other people, whether it be just his teachers, friends and peers at school, he’s got an idea from the kind of experiences he has throughout the day. I struggle with trying to understand his thought process these days. He’s appeared to be mischievous in the choices he makes while he’s out of the house. While they are mostly petty incidents, it feels like the pressure we receive from school to constantly correct his behaviour, has effected my parenting. While I believe that others’ perception of him doesn’t matter, because we know our child best, a part of me believes that these small, petty, incidents is not something to be ignored. Perhaps I come off as an authoritative mother and not very understanding of what he’s going through, but is this not all a phase between ‘parent and child’ in these stages?

Right now, he tests’ his limits, pushes all the right emotional buttons to get you all wild up. His vocabulary has expanded to, “what the heck”, “stupid”, “idiot”. I’m sure you’re thinking, what are we teaching him? But let me tell you…These words, he would never assume is okay in the house, but would freely flaunt while he’s at school, because it’s words he consistently hears out in the playground with his, i’m-grown-enough-to-be-saying-this, crowd. I can’t really control the things he hears. I can’t constantly keep him out of his interests like, “Roblox”, video games, etc., just to shield him from retaining negative behaviour and unlikable speeches. You say, I should just let him learn to understand between wrong and right and make the right calls, right? Well that’s the issue, between the kind-hearted child, and fun personality that he has, he’s become oblivious to the social standards. I guess that’s not really so bad right? Well…I’m at my wits, trying to figure out how to be his mom, his friend, his confidant, and his teacher.

That’s part 1 or Am I doing this right.

Artemis is quite a funny character. She is fun, loving, thoughtful, sweet, but also an agent provocateur. Slowly she’s learning that her actions can extend to hulk-smashing, kicking is hilarious, and holding her breath till the vein on the side of her head protrudes. Creating a balance of understanding her emotions, and allowing her to let out her inner crazyness in accepting that it helps her emotional development, has me torn between whether or not I should instill the same parenting method that I use with Apollo. She’s 17 mos, what does she really understand at this point? Well she’s quite a smarty pants, not only because she’s my child and every mom is entitled to saying they’ve got unbelievably, intelligent children. But really..she’s pretty competent at 17 mos.

Aside from Apollo and Artemis being two different sexes, they are also two different ages, and personality. I feel like parenting should cater to their characters, rather than one kind of parenting that suits my likeness and convenience. With that said, again, i’m wondering, Am I doing this right?

Some tuesday blues for ya?

 

…I should finish my coffee that I made 2 hours ago.

 

“Motherhood is difficult…and rewarding”

I’m out,
MM