Opposites

It's interesting to analyze the way our mothering thoughts work. There are those times, where everyone is busy and I'm able to actually wash a floor and I have this whole schedule in my head and am knocking things off, and naps are running smoothly and kids are acting nicely and I feel on the top of the world. I can do this! I am supermom #1! Bring on the kids!

And then in the same day, bedtimes fall apart, baby's sleep habits go haywire, other children start waking up in the middle of the night, the dishes don't get done for a week straight (yeah that actually happens), the mess in the house gets knee-high (ok, that one doesn't happen) and my thoughts just tumble downwards. I'm a mess. I can't do this. I need help. No one is interested in listening to me. Nobody likes me. It's me against everyone else. I'm failing at this mothering business.

These thoughts can happen hours apart! I think what we need to do is take it moment by moment and stop thinking in the big picture all the time. Just because one night is crazy, it's not my fault! It doesn't make me horrible at everything! I can do the exact same things from one night to the next and the kids can be totally different. Really what it boils down to is that I'm not in charge.

Like I told my mother - He dishes it out slowly so we can handle it. She's babysitting for a niece and nephew of mine this week while the parents are in Florida. One day the kids woke up in the middle of the night and the bedtime routine took awhile and she was exhausted. The next night everything went smoothly, they ate well, went to sleep well and she felt amazing!

Just like when He gives us easy kids, hard kids, easy kids, hard kids and usually puts one challenging child out there at a time. So when I reach my breaking point and I feel only negative thoughts, I guess I should know it's only uphill from there. And I should look forward to feeling like supermom again in a few hours!

I know I've been a long lost Blogger. Computer time lately is a rare commodity as my darling 2 year old can be nowhere in the vicinity if I want to access anything via the computer.

Recently, the day in which we were going to take a long 4 day vacation to Monsey, I had a challenging morning. I woke up with the twinges of an impending infection, which unfortunately is somewhat common with me while in nursing mode. Infections are tough because if you leave them for too long, they just get worse. It's somewhat like a headache, you know it's going to come and there's not much you can do to get out of it, so most people would go straight for the meds. Infections are slightly more complicated in that you have to actually make a visit to the dr so they can then prescribe antibiotics, which need to be picked up at the pharmacy and the pain only starts going away in the next day or two after that. My last infection was so bad, that I had to pump instead of nurse for about three days, until I the pain went away enough for me to start nursing again. My babies don't take bottles, so this was not as easy as it sounds.
Anyway, I woke up with the infection feeling. And we were supposed to go out of town that evening. We had all the kids home and Husband was going to work. So I had to get everyone packed and get the house in order in time for him to come home, light the menorah, eat dinner and get on the road. I struggled with believing that everything is for the good, and relaxing. Because really, I knew I could be sick in a few hours, and maybe I should be calling the dr. to fit an appointment in there somewhere (with our one car at work).. etc... etc... What to do, what to do... I pretty much just put it in denial and went along my day, but was filled with anxiety over what was going to happen.
Then I texted someone and unloaded a bit saying, I don't understand, Hashem KNOWS I'm leaving town. Suddenly it hit me. Hashem KNOWS. And Hashem knows me.

If He knows I'm leaving town, and He knows I get anxious when feeling an infection and He KNOWS there won't be my dr and my pharmacy in Monsey -- then why was He doing this to me??? That was such a comforting thought!! He KNOWS!! So if He knows it all, then what was I getting worried about???!!

Turns out, the infection just disappeared during the course of the day. But that thought stayed with me a lot during the trip. When the kids were out of hand, and the toddler wouldn't nap and thought she was Boss of the House, and the baby woke me up at night... He KNOWS. He knows I'm on vacation and He knows what I can and can't handle. And He specifically knows that it drives me bonkers when little baby sleeps so well and then Older child wakes me up instead -- but if He knows it all, then what am I worried about?? He knows exactly the situation and He knows exactly what drives me, Sara crazy and what drives other people crazy and that means He knows how much of the dosage of each issue He should give me - exactly. How much pain, how much gain... Who to put in the store at the same time as me so we should have a long-lost meeting (saw Rabbi Skaist in EverGreen) and what exactly should be going on in each room or house when I walk in. He knows it all. Isn't that comforting??

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Interesting phenomenon: My sis and I traded strollers. Her new, cool, hip New Yorky one was too heavy for her staircases, so I gave her my normal Providence black older one.
Today I took the kids to school with the cool NY one. I was embarrassed. To be New Yorky in Providence is not cool!! How funny. When someone is in NY, they want to have the hottest most in-style thing. When one is in Providence, they specifically do NOT want to look in-style because they get laughed at here!
Do you know how many people stopped to ask me about the stroller this morning?? I had to keep telling everyone, I had to trade, my sister needed me to. Don't worry, I didn't buy it because I want to have what is "in". And this is why I like Providence!! To live in a world where it is NOT cool to be "in"!
In my head I had to keep saying, Hashem KNOWS. He knows how I feel pushing this stroller and He chose to make me do it. What is He trying to teach me?
Maybe to show me how it feels. When I was in Monsey, eating out at a restaurant filled with people who were dressed "in", and my children and I felt like such nerdy outsiders, that was hard. Now He showed me the opposite. Don't you love Hashem's sense of humor sometimes?!

Holiday Time

A friend of mine’s student asked her why any woman would want to slave away in the kitchen and cook for her family as much as we do.

So last week, I sat down and wrote an article about the woman that I strive to be. The kind of woman that lives to cook all these Yom Tov meals and not only lives it but loves it. The woman who would rather be taking care of her children than be anywhere else. The people who I let read it, really enjoyed it and then thought I was that amazing woman.

Unfortunately, I am not there yet. I did not post it on my blog for fear of sounding too unrelatable. Cooking all these Yom Tov meals definitely is hard. The key is to really try to enjoy it. Tonight, Motzei Shabbos, when were are almost finished and are standing at the edge, just before the last round of Yomim Tovim (holidays), I realized that I am actually sad to see them go. A part of me wants to have the kids go back to normal school routines and have the house look more presentable and the laundry baskets empty once again (if they ever are), but another part of me does not want to let go. There’s so much family time and so much deeper thinking time and so much holiness in the air and connection to Hashem time and plus, Hoshana Raba is that last chance to do Teshuva. Doesn’t that give the rest of the year a dismal feeling to it? Think about it. Think about Yom Tov and all the family togetherness, sharing meals over and over (and over and over!), going to shul and seeing everyone dressed up and going shopping yet again and sharing sighs with the next frum person over about food shopping for the millionth time… and then think about winter. School. Heat. Work. Regularness. See?

When someone told me to post that article about that wonderful person on my blog, I said, I’m not going to post it because I have not reached that level yet. However, together – it would be nice for us to discuss HOW we can reach that level together. To actually ENJOY our time with our family around without yearning for that ALONE time all the time. So let’s discuss….

Elul musings..

http://jewishmom.com/2016/09/11/avoiding-the-dangers-of-elul-12-minute-mommy-peptalk/

In this Pep Talk, Chana Jenny (author of Jewishmom.com) talks about the month of Elul being very dangerous for pitfalls of disempowerment. She talks about my favorite speaker Esther Baila Schwartz, how EB has been working anger for years and years. And this past year, she felt tremendous anger one day and felt like "was that all for nothing?!"

I too, felt this way! This past blog, I wrote about how calm I am. I mainly think I am calm, because people tell me this. I guess it's what I look like from the outside. But the night after I wrote that blog, I had the most uncalm moment in a looong time!!! This was exactly what JewishMOM spoke about! My husband was not in the house and I was the one putting all the kids to bed. (Some moms say, I'm ALWAYS the one putting them all to bed, what's the big deal?) But for me, Hashem knows my situation and my house and He knows what I need help with the most. My hardest, most challenging parent moment, is AFTER putting kids to bed, if they show up again. And again. And again. Once they are supposed to be in bed, I just expect to have space and do not want to see any of them until the morning. So of course, I get tested in this area a lot.
We had this guest over one Friday night with two little kids. A 1 year old and a 3 year old. We were discussing having our kids awake for Friday night and she said, What is a Shabbos seudah without children?? It sounded beautiful but I stuck to my opinion. When my children are tired, no one wants to be around them, that night and the entire next day. And I value my Shabbos seuodos that are just my husband and me, bli children.
Anyway, that night some of my children kept coming down, with issues. They were fighting, they were crying, they were just at eachother and over and over, they'd come back to me. One was supposed to have an earlier bedtime that night as a consequence for not caring about getting to school on time. And by 9:30, they were STILL  crying and fighting. I had enough and I showed it. I went OPPOSITE of what I wrote about that day. So all you people who were feeling like you couldn't relate, RELATE.
And it made me feel awful, because I am supposed to be the Queen of Calm! Didn't I just write about it?!!
So today I listened to JewishMOM and she talked about the month of Elul having amazing potential for change and having amazing potential for pitfalls, which is the Yetzer Hora trying to get at you for what you think you're so good at. She warns against falling in these holes of despair. Do not think, "forget it, I'm never going to get there", just pick yourself up and continue.  The YH is just out there to scare and try to get you to give up.
So if you are a Bitachon Master, or Queen of Calm or Beyond Anger, know that you are going to fail sometimes, but don't get depressed, the failures are there to help you become even MORE of what you are striving to be. Take advantage of Elul and just take small, little steps in the direction that you want to go in.

On being Calm

"Mommy, can I have pretzels with ketchup?"
I guess I just have to come to terms -- nothing on my list will get done while this kid is home and around me. If I just accept it, I'll stop feeling like I just want to SCREAM! She has a mind of her own and she wants me to hear it.
"Mommy I want sumping."
"Crackers?"
"no,  I want sumping"
"pretzels? Yogurt?"
"No. Mommy I want sumping"
It's the age of toddlerhood, so adoring, yet so demanding and time consuming at the same time:) Hashem really put it into a good mixture - there's no getting mad at something so delicious and innocent!

This morning was challenging. The weather was gloomy, no one wanted to get out of bed. I woke up at 5am to nurse the baby, who promptly went back to sleep. I couldn't be on his schedule though because the next one wakes up at 6am, to get her bottle, to put her back to sleep. It's so nice that they all go back to sleep! If I had each one separately, I'd get so much sleep! Then my alarm rings at 6:30am to help the rest get off to school on time.
The mornings are filled with anxiety from the children who don't want to run off to school - I mean, who does? One of my happiest thoughts is that I don't have to go to school anymore. Then there's the last minute lunch prep, the frozen water bottles to take out, the tzeddakah that each child needs to bring, the mitzvah notes and the clingy almost 2 year old who ONLY wants Mommy. ("No, I want Mommy to do it.")
And amidst all that I feel exhausted and can't get my eyes open and my brain is affuzz. But here's how I do it. I talk to myself constantly "I know I am a wreck, but I will not show it." When the child bothers the toddler for the umpteenth time, I gently lift him and put him a time out, nice and quietly. I will not show my bad mood, it will not come out.
Mainly what pushes me is the guilt I'll feel later if the morning is a wreck and I had something to do with it. So I force my smile on, add some cheeriness to my voice and don't let one ounce of impatience come out. It is so easy to act for kids, all they crave is that sweet voice and smile, no matter if it's real or not.
Only my husband looks at me and say, "Wow. I have no idea how you can stay calm among all this."
That made me realize how many years it took to perfect my calmness. I am not a calm person inside at all. But on the outside, I've learned to do it just right to get everyone out with a smile on their face. I hope.

Caring...Sharing

When I get older.... we still say that at my age. Where I am now, I'm constantly thinking.. when I get older. There's a stage in life where there is not much "you", but more living outside of yourself. Which is supposed to be our goal anyway, to learn how to live outside of our self. We are born thinking about ourselves, with our fists clenched and over the years, with our parents' help, we are supposed to start seeing more and more of the big picture. For some of my children, it's harder than for other's. There's one child that I'm always trying to teach to take food at a minimum. Just because I put a platter out that is full of food that that child loves, it does not mean they need to take a huge handful. Think about others, you can always take more small portions afterwards.
It's funny though, when we learn to think the MOST outside of ourselves and become really caring people, that's when we have the least time to really care! Finally now, I have learned to genuinely care about my friends and I have absolutely no time to spare to tell them about it.

When I reached out to my friend who is in her ninth month and told her how much I miss her, and she wrote back and really shared her thoughts and physical pains about being pregnant at 40, I felt a real connection, something I really miss in my life now. But then I did not find a moment to write back and tell her that.

I really genuinely feel and care for so many of my friends and I am using this not quite so public blog to tell you all that. I want to hear everything going on in your life, but not just the facts, the thoughts and feelings behind it. I care, for real! I want to know! Through having children, Hashem has granted me that gift of really wanting to connect to my friends. And so many people are afraid, they want to be listened to but afraid of becoming a burden by opening up too much and afraid they'll be too much or too clingy. I want to hear everything but I apologize from the depth of my heart that I can't fully constantly respond right away due to my little offspring who need my love and care more than anything. Maybe when I'm older, I can open up a website, called "I Care!" and then I will have the time to really listen and respond much more. But that'll have to be in between my hours of listening to my own children on the phone in their own respective places, G-d willing.

Yesterday was Tisha B'av. I think I was finally able to understand why we focus on something that happened so long ago. As a child, I couldn't understand. I got it, that it was sad, but so what? Here we are living fine. But, as a parent and seeing so many people suffer around the world, I tried to convey to my children what it meant to be missing something so much. It's not so much what happened many years ago, but what we are missing today because of it.

We, my daughters and I, organized a kumzits. Mainly because we like them so much and I love helping children experience something that moving and the main kumzits in the community felt that they would not be able to have the focus that they wanted to have, with a bunch of children around. I understand that, I guess - well not really because children have so much emotion inside of them that is longing to come out, they just need the right person to talk to them about it and help them. And I am not it. I went way beyond my comfort zone by inviting them all here and singing for them. I have never in my life sang a solo before and I don't think anyone besides my family has ever heard me sing. Not that I'm that wonderful, but I'm shy and self-contained if that's the word. It took a lot out of me to sing and know that lots of little girls were watching and listening. I felt like I was on show and it was quite unnerving. But when I saw how much they were enjoying themselves, I did it - to give them that experience. If not for Menucha though, I don't think I would've done it. She too, went out of her shy self and sang with me. The others joined in at some points, but mainly it was us two. But they all did not want to leave and looked like they had the best time and my children are still singing the songs this morning, so I think it was worth it.

As much as there is relief that the Nine Days are over, there is a sadness in the air. We davened, asked and talked so much about Moshiach yesterday and today we were sitting at the breakfast table eating as normal. We discussed how that was a huge bracha in itself, thinking about our dear friends who are going through their baby's surgery, far away from their other children. We think and talk about them daily and daven, daven that their son will wake up (he is still put under since his surgery last Wednesday, since he had a fever and they haven't closed him up yet) and recover quickly. And G-d willing, they too will be sitting and eating breakfast normally one day soon together as a whole family. But alas, Moshiach isn't here yet and we need to continue to push and do and hope, hope, hope...

P.S. Just checked..... his chest was closed, BH!

Thoughts on, I mean after my birthday

35. I feel so middle. And it’s a strange thought, cuz I distinctly feel younger. I look at myself in the mirror and see the young girl I still am. How did 35 years pass? How did I become so middle-aged?!! Life does go by fast, it’s true. I know I was there, I lived through it all, I can’t believe I made it.

I remember sitting in the audience in 8^th grade while the principal talked about graduating year. I remember thinking, there’s no way I’m here. Graduating 8^th grade??? That’s what older girls do. And if I imagined myself at 35, it would’ve been inconceivable.

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As hours passed since that last part was written, I had time to think about my age status in between changing many diapers, nursing and putting two babies to bed (a few times). Boy have I changed since I was a kid. I may still feel young but I definitely am not the same person at all. I am more self-aware, way more self confident, very, very strong and definitely not the little, shy wimp I was. But sometimes, that shy wimp still shows up.

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And so the saga continues… this is about 24 hours later. Well, that’s pretty much the story of my middle-age life right now. Stop and go, stop and go. So it all comes down to that what I need to work on is NOT TO CARE! I was telling someone that nowadays I feel that I don’t care about as much as I used to, because things that aren’t important for the raising of my children, are just not in my brain enough to care about. When I tried to think of examples, it was pretty funny – I couldn’t, because I couldn’t care enough to try to remember what it is I didn’t care about.

Today I have about 30 things to do. I go down the list in order, because if I tried to think of what was most important, I’d stand still thinking all day. So I just focus on what it says and go do it. I usually accomplish about 5 out of the 30. But in between that, I know I accomplish the creation of entire worlds, that are not on my list. I teach my children how to love and be loved, how to care and be cared about. I organize, socialize and wipe tears and other things. I feed, I listen and try to smile through it all. Maybe this’ll be the part of my life that I accomplish the most things, even though on the outside it looks like I accomplish the least.

Thank you Hashem for giving me 35 blessed years with so much family, so much bracha and oh so much patience. As my father said, another 35 years will G-d willing take me to 70! But that’s an entire lifetime for me.

Thank you Eema and Abba for helping shape me into the person that I am and am proud to be.

Today my daughter had to dress wacky for Wacky Wednesday. It was very hard for her to dress strangely and very VERY hard to walk in the street dressed like that. It wasn’t even that different. As I pointed out to her, to the rest of the world, us frum people are always strange, so no one notices. But she struggled with her self confidence A LOT. She wanted me to tell everyone we passed that she was dressed like that only because it’s Wacky Wednesday. I kept pushing her, Be strong. Be different. Be proud of who you are. Is it going to kill you if someone thinks you normally dress like that??? Maybe that wasn’t right as I was just like her when I was younger. Would I have liked my wacky father to say, “Do it anyway! Go outside dressed like that and go strong and proud!” No!! I would’ve been mortified. It’s so strange that I’m so different now. Maybe the ones who are the most scared to be different, turn out to be the ones who are the most proud of being different later in life. Now you wouldn’t catch me in a dress that is in style, it would embarrass me to fit into a crowd. I am different and I WANT to always be different! Thank you Abba!

Little voices calling… “Mommy” and “waaah” – gotta go continue on my life’s journey…. Boruch Hashem!