family

Family

~ refusetosink2016

I remember when I learned the right way to throw a football.  I wasn’t a kid.  I was a mom.  I was a mom who really hadn’t spent much time in my life ever thinking it would matter if I could spiral a football through the air.  Suddenly, back in that moment, it mattered to someone much more important than me.  It mattered to the sweetest six year old boy in the world.  It mattered to my son.  His dad had passed away the year before.  His dad had coached every sport he had played.  His dad knew how to spiral a football.  I had run three marathons and was great at tennis.  However, throwing a football was not on my resume.  But, here I was now, single mama to four,  including the one who had spent the previous night crying when I tucked him into his bed.  I had signed him up for flag football.  He was so excited when it was time to get out there and play.  I watched as each kid lined up facing another kid.  They began to throw footballs back and forth to each other.  As my son struggled, an innocent little kid next to him said, “Don’t worry, you’ll get it.  Just go home and practice with your dad.”  That evening broke me in a way I never thought possible, but it also motivated me.  My son, upset he didn’t know how to throw a football, and even more upset his dad couldn’t teach him, lit a fire inside of me.  It was only me.  I was it.  I had no choice.  I practiced alongside him.  We threw a football back and forth in the yard, even when my energy from the day was long gone.  Throwing a football was only one thing that I learned to do because I saw no other choice.  When your kids need you, you step it up.  I spent a lot of time in those first few years as a single mom thinking how much easier it would be with a man to help with these things and to be a role model for my boys.  What I didn’t understand then was that a man wasn’t what we needed.  I didn’t realize that I was enough.

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From The Middle-Aged Mom Diaries: Can we please do less?

~ refusetosink2016

When my youngest was a baby, about 20 years ago, I got food poisoning.  I remember what I ate, where I ate it, and the moment, a few hours after dinner, when it took hold of me.  It was absolutely horrible.  I was married to my late husband at the time.  He went to work the next day.  I stayed home so sick I couldn’t move from the bathroom, alone with a one year old.  Thank God for my dad.  He was older and relied on an oxygen tank, but still was there to help tame a new walker who was into everything.  I was sick for five days.  My husband went to work every single one of those days.  Am I trying to throw my late husband under the bus when he can’t defend himself?  No.  To be quite honest, we come from a society where this behavior for decades has been deemed “normal”.  He was raised this way.  Should he have un-learned this behavior?  Well, that would have been great, of course.  So maybe, I guess, in a way, I am calling him out.  If he was sick, he took a day off and stayed in bed.  If I was sick, I took care of kids and had to ask my aging father for help when I really got in a bind.  This is all true.  However, if I am calling him out, I am not calling him out alone.  This is the society that we grew up in, a society that is slowly changing, thank God.  I see that in many ways.  However, after years of being conditioned to do it all, how and when do we, as moms, finally learn to do less? 

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From the Middle-Aged Mom Diaries

~ refusetosink2016

I’m a hot mess.  Totally overwhelmed.  Burnt out.  Either running around trying to figure out which direction to go in or immobilized, needing to do absolutely nothing.  I also feel grateful for everything I have, for my kids and everything they do, for the person I have grown into, and for the lessons I continue to learn.  I imagine my brain with 168 tabs open all at once ALL THE TIME.  The schedules for 5 different baseball teams and a lacrosse team.  Which classes am I teaching each week and at which locations?  What days and times can I schedule my clients around needing to pick my kid up from his practice that always runs late?  How do I fit in accomplishing everything I wrote on my 2026 Bingo Board and promised myself I would do this year?  I need to clean my office and mail out gifts I forgot I still had from Christmas.  I need to buy paint for the bathroom renovation.  Is it a pain in the ass to pull up linoleum?  There were 32 mini Rice Krispy treats in that box I bought last night.  How are half of them missing?  Which child ate way too much sugar today?  Those flowers my boyfriend got me are absolutely gorgeous.  I really need to stop to smell the flowers more.  I think I’m almost out of moisturizer.  I should get myself the good kind at Ulta this week.  I need an oil change.  Where should I go that I won’t feel like they will try to screw me just cause I’m a woman?  Did I put the clothes that were in the washer into the dryer?  What can I make that’s healthy for dinner tomorrow?  Omg Easter is next weekend and I still need to put together Easter Baskets.  Wtf Kelly!  I wish I could stop my random foot pain.  What will my theme be in my yoga class?  Can I fit in a lunch break with a friend this week?  I have a few people that I really want to catch up with.  I need to remember to order the dog’s heartworm chews.  I need to write out some checks to pay the water bill and my excise tax I keep forgetting about.  Will my skin ever stop being so itchy?  I thought the hormone replacement therapy was supposed to help.  Thank God it helps me sleep.  When could I try to go line dancing this week?  I know I need to make time for me.  That mom guilt really sucks.  What else could I be working on to bring in more income?  I wish the island sink would just drain already.  What the heck is stuck in there anyways?  I haven’t worked on that puzzle I started right after Christmas.  I really should finish it so I can get it off the kitchen table.  I should really slow down.  I need to take things one at a time.  I probably should do some yoga.  I will feel more centered.  Do I have time for that?

Sound familiar?  If you have ever felt alone in your thoughts and responsibilities, fear not for research tells us this is all way too common…

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