Canada Moms Blog

Yom Kippur Reflections: Motherhood and Myself

I've been feeling disappointed in myself lately. I'm naturally very hard on myself, so my current state of self-disappointment should come as no surprise to my mother, friends, readers, people I pass by on the street, and even people on airplanes looking way down at the speck of me from the clouds. Alas!

Sigh, it's not that bad. But, still, I've been hard on myself since I was an average-sized kid struggling to lose 30 pounds because my dance teacher told me to, and even earlier than that, like, since I was born and cried for 10 straight months presumably because I thought I sucked -- until that fateful day when it snowed in July and I stood on broken legs (another story) gazing out the windows in awe.

I tend to go from there to there when it comes to motherhood. I'm either exploding in frustration or gazing in awe at the two little wonders pulling each other's hair out before me. My daughter, 4, and my son, 2 -- half her age, as I like to remind her, not that she quite understands that yet. And they're getting past the stage where people take pity on me for being, say, tired or frazzled or at wit's end. My kids aren't "babies" any more. I can't go around telling people how exhausted I am anymore, and I can't complain about how challenged I feel all the time -- "because this is motherhood," they tell me, shrugging their shoulders, "and it ain't gonna get any easier."

Do One Nice Thing by Debbie Tenzer: A Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club

September has brought a lot of back to school craziness to many moms, but we are also focusing on things outside of our own busy lives. This month, for Silicon Valley Moms Group bloggers' monthly book club, we are reading and discussing a book full of nice things to help the world become a better place. 

Join in as Silicon Valley Moms Group bloggers discuss book Do One Nice Thing by Debbie Tenzer.

• New Jersey Moms Blog's Lori leads us off with a chain of compassion
• Julie from Just Precious does many nice things
• Jennifer from Connect with your Teens is sharing the message of nice things with her family
• Amy from Le ShallowGal ponders whether telling people about her good deeds lessens them
•  Bonggamom from Finding Bonggamom notices that even kids can do one nice thing
• Heidi from Coast 2 Coast Mom passes it on when companies do one nice thing
• Jessica from It's My Life says you already do one nice thing
• Rebecca from Life With Boys tell herself to just be nice
• Chefdruck from Chefdruck Musings was feeling most sorry for herself when she saw him
• Amy from Occupation Mommy is helping her daughters do nice things for their sister
• Samantha from Temporarily Me Dot Com is made happy by giving her money away
• Kristie from Real Mommy Reviews asks "can you do one nice thing?"
• Melanie from Reviews from the Crib likes to keep her goals small and attainable
• Linsey from Me Too You substitutes one nice thing for another
• Rox from Rox and Roll inspires her children with The Box Project
  
• Stacy from Laptop TV Mom realizes that she needs to look beyond her four walls and not just when it's convenient for her
  

More posts will be put up throughout the day on our writer's personal sites, so be sure to check back to follow along.

New Jersey Moms Blog is hosting the book club discussion this month. Please go here to leave a comment and join in the discussion.

Read about the book Do One Nice Thing here.

Past Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Clubs have included:

• Birth Day by Mark Sloan, M.D.
• What Happened to the Girl I Married? by Michael Miller
• Testimony by Anita Shreve
• Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
• Much to Your Chagrin by Suzanne Guilette
  
• It Started with Pop-Tarts by Lori Hanson
• Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
• The White Trash Moms Handbook by Michelle Lamar
• Writing Motherhood by Lisa Garrigues
• The Vaccine Book by Dr. Robert W. Sears
• The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross

If you are an author or a publisher and have a book that you would like to submit for consideration for a future Silicon Valley Moms Group book club, please contact us at info (at) svmoms dot com.

Operation Sandman Has Hit a Roadblock

The longest parenting struggle we've had with our child revolves around her bedtime. Before she could walk and talk, she could cry forever and couldn't fall asleep without one of us right by her side. Then after she could walk and talk she became the master of sleep delay tactics.

She really doesn't like to sleep. This really confuses someone like me who loves to get as much shut-eye as humanly possible.

It's Sunday. I'm Not at Church. Are You?

Cross-posted from our sister site, Silicon Valley Moms Blog.

The Future is Wild is playing from the next room, my spouse is reading the newspaper, I am drinking coffee in my jammies. Later we might go for a hike. It's Sunday and I'm not at church.

It's not that I'm adverse to church, or synagogue or any other form of religious faith. It's that I'm not sure how to steer my family toward a life that includes a faith-based day and uncertain that I have the drive to commit to it for the long haul. I keep telling myself, If one-quarter of Americans can do it, so can I, right?

An ongoing Gallup Poll research study suggests that about 40 percent of Americans attend some kind of religious services, while nearly 10 percent consider themselves faithful but rarely show up for services. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (a dang interesting resource for information) demonstrates that geography and type of faith guide how often people attend religious services and the more urban, the lower the percentage of attendees. Again, I find myself just a statistic.

Recently, the Catholic church has gone on a get-butts-in-seats media blitz asking its faithful to return to regular services.The problem is, ditching Church is not a sin. If it ain't a sin, I'm pretty certain my spouse would pick watching the Raiders get pummeled over a couple beers than go to Church.

Continue reading this post over at Silicon Valley Moms Blog.

Not On The Guest List

This past summer, my two daughters were flower girls at my brother-in-law’s wedding. Adorable and excited, they danced the night away with their equally excited and adorable cousins, plus a whole host of other children under 10. The children offered a wonderful contrast to the evening – an energy to the elegance; a realness to the ritual, and overall, an increase to the joy and smiles and fun and celebration. They were welcomed and well behaved, and we so appreciated our family and friends including our kids in their good time that evening.

But if they, and the other children, hadn’t been invited?

Well, that would have been ok, too.

A Note to Pre-Baby Me

Sometimes, I wish I were you. Yes, you.  Over there.  My younger, pre-child self.  The one not covered in spilled apple juice, hot chocolate, or dish soap. The one not still in glasses and pajamas at 1 in the afternoon. The one who didn't have to stop yet another fight between her son and daughter over who should move further down the couch, who touched who, who should clean up the mess, or who farted without apologizing.

I'm talking to you, who didn't have to search for a pair of "non-holey, non-painty" jeans for the 7-year-old 15 minutes before bedtime because he refused to get into his pajamas until the last possible minute. Nor did you have to watch the 5-year-old's daredevil dance performance where she unexpectedly catapults herself off the couch to narrowly miss all the pointy toys strewn all over the floor.

The September Rush

What is it with the first few weeks of September? You go from the lazy, hazy days of summer and are then smacked upside the head with so many obligations that you don't even know where to begin.

There is the first day of school (and preschool, in our house). There is that plethora of other obligations that all decide they must start in the first two weeks of September. PAC meetings, dance classes and so forth. If you are a member of a church (as we are) there are even more meetings. Small group, Boys' club, random conferences.

ALL IN THE FIRST FEW WEEKS OF SEPTEMBER.

Sorry for shouting, but it's getting to be a little bit ridiculous. People want you to be connected, involved, engaged. Which means that you need to spend every single evening at this event or that function or this one particular meeting.

We've been feeling the heat a little, as we do every year.

To help keep the roar as dull as it can be, we've been practicing saying, "No." Small group can wait until October. Swimming lessons need not begin until October either. Or possibly, January.

There are five human beings in our house who need to live as peacefully as possible while living five (joint, and) separate lives. Life isn't a race; we don't need to start everything at the same time, only to see some of the things that we truly love trip and fall and die on the side of the road.

For now we will do what absolutely needs to be done in September. The other things will be added in slowly as the time allows. Which may actually turn out to be never.

You know what? I'm totally OK with that.

Original post to Canada Moms Blog.

No One Said Kindergarten Would Be Easy

My baby has been in Kindergarten a grand total of fourteen days and we've already settled into a routine.  The routine involves the normal things you might expect, breakfast, getting dressed, brushing teeth and packing a snack before he happily goes off to school.  It also involves me wondering what the day will bring.  Will today be the day?

He is my second son and is very unlike his brother in numerous ways.  On the other hand they have both inherited from me, some of the very traits I would have banned from being passed on, if, you know, God had asked me.  He didn't.  As such, they both have inherited my shyness.  It is beyond difficult to watch them struggle with the very same things I struggled with.  Partly because I understand but partly because I have come out the other side.  If only I could impart the knowledge that I have to them without the painful lessons I had to endure (mostly out of my own stubbornness).

My kid sucks. The bottle, that is.

Hey, I'm back. 11 weeks ago, I had a baby girl, and now I change lots of diapers. The end.

Hah. Just kidding!

She is here, and she is everything. My life has been completely transformed on a very basic, fundamental level. I have so many stories to tell, so many things that are fun, and sad, and interesting, and disgusting, and transformative.

But there's one story that I need to share with you right now.  Because it's important.

My kid doesn't eat from my boobs. She will only eat from a bottle. This wasn't the plan, but I have exclusively pumped breastmilk for her since she was 4 days old.

And I am totally OK with that.

Moment Of Truth: The Drug Talk

"You remember how the cops found 25 million marijuana plants in that building downtown today?" he asks me over spaghetti. "I do; all 25 hundred of them," I reply. "Well, mom, they said that they haven't arrested a suspect," and I added, "Yet."

He's grounded for the next week, for being ridiculously stupid after school today, so the CBC is as much stimulation as the kid can get. He'll take it and soak in every last drop. 

The 11 year old perks up. "2500 whats?" he asks, and his brother fills him in on all the details. He hears the story and asks me, "Marijuana is a plant?" I tell him that it is, that it's, more accurately, an herb much like basil or parsley except that it doesn't make your pasta taste better, it gets you high.

"What's high?" they ask, and I am suddenly Jack's tweenage reality.