Being a Mom

I’ll never forget the time my mom asked me for a bite of my Mickey mouse ice cream on a stick and I refused.  She took the ice cream right out of my hand, took a bite, and proceeded to eat the rest of it while I threw a mighty of all tantrums on the hard wood floor, pounding my fists in revolt and anger, yelling at the top of my lungs and crying out for mercy. 

To this day, I have never forgotten to first offer my mom a bite of anything I am having as long as she is nearby.  Ever.  A little bit out of respect.  A little bit out of fear. 

And now as I am in a similar stage of motherhood, trying my hardest not to yell and scream and demand why my son has decided to poop in his pants when he knows very well how to make his way to the toilet, I wonder in retrospect, why I can’t seem to be a bit more calm.  I wonder why I can’t remember I am damaging a bit of his self esteem with my over zealous yelling and I wonder why I can’t recall the calm composed nature I told myself I’d be when the day started. 

I’ve never been an emotional crying type of mom.  While other moms were basking in the cuteness of their firstborns, I was wondering when I would fall in love with this little wrinkly being that kept crying and pooping.  Motherhood wasn’t natural to me, in fact it was overwhelming, uncomfortable, and suffocating at times.  Instead of feeling sad when my kids cried themselves to sleep, I wondered how long it would take, only seeming to have a bit of compassion when my husband was nearby and even more strict than me.  Instead of crying when my kids got their monthly shots, I logically tried to explain to them that the pain would go away shortly (my oldest never seemed to care, my youngest had his face turn beet red everytime).       

And now that I’m almost three years into it with two kids, I seem to have softened and feel this thing called love a lot more consistently towards my own kids.  But now, now I  have to remind myself to be more patient.  To be more loving.  To be careful when I am teaching with a disapproving taint.  It’s a hard balance between disciplining and loving, establishing rules and principles, enforcing them, and also being the loving mother that I want to be. 

Nobody likes to fail.  I sure don’t.  I’m pretty sure my son doesn’t either.  And yet as I think back to that moment tonight when I was just so angry, yelling, questioning him about why he had decided to poop a nasty diarrhea consistency blob of a poop in his undies (which also transferred to his pants and all over the bathroom floor as he made his way out of his clothes), all I can see is my anger and his sadness.  I’ve read all the articles about how to control your anger with kids, how to commit beforehand not to get upset and plan for how you’ll react.  But you know what?  Easier said than done.  Because in the moment as I was scrubbing away stinky poop and telling him he should not be doing this, I couldn’t for the life of me fathom how to lovingly help him and be more nurturing and positively reinforce his potty training abilities.  All I could do was err in anger and apologize later, tell him I’m sorry and hope he’ll forgive me and not remember his mother as the scary demon who would put on her angel halo after all the steam had cleared.  And the other part of me is wondering if I should have just stuck to my guns and been the mean mom to help him remember it more. 

I’m not quite sure. 

Motherhood is so incredibly hard sometimes.  Tonight seems to be one of those nights.  As soon as I cleaned the poop up… my other son peed all over the carpet for the millisecond he was naked between diapers, and then proceeded to poop right after (his third poop of the day).  Someone please tell me, when is this poopy stage of motherhood over?  And why does it all have to happen the one night my husband is working late?! 

He Makes Me Do Things!

Disclaimer: Sappy post to follow

I'm not a huge fan of bucket lists.  At the same time, I am so excited about doing so many new things in my 30's and most of the reason for that is my perfect husband.  Okay, so he's not really perfect but his mom might disagree and I might as well.  HAHA.  He inspires me to be better, to do new things, he's patient and positive and absolutely the best life coach one could have.

When I was a kid, I wasn't always allowed to go hang out with my friends on the weekdays.  The rare times I was allowed to go hang out, I was always a crappy roller blader.  A bad bicyclist.  A horrible basketball player.  Kids can be inadvertently cruel with their not always harmless teasing and joking around, but no positive impact was ever had.  I just got more insecure and wanted less to do with those things that I sucked at.  Instead, I devoted my time to reading a lot and doing my homework.  I was pretty good at those things.

At 28, I went snorkeling and camping for the first time.  At 31, I learned how to ski.  With skiing, it's mostly because Andy pushed me - I would have been fine giving up after the first time (and I only fell a few times too...) but I'm glad he made me stick with it because this past weekend, I got to ski alongside Jordan and it was the best ever.  No more fear of falling off the ski lift getting on or off, no more falling, and it was actually exhilarating and awesome!  With camping, I'd probably be okay never going again - I'm not a huge camping enthusiast, but it's also not enough of a deal breaker that I can't just go along and try to have some fun.  And some fun I have had, it's especially fun with lots of family members who bring amazing food and stuff.  With snorkeling, I was beyond scared to go - but glad I tried it and am not afraid anymore.  And it was pretty neat seeing all the different fish in the water.  I'd do it again.  Sure!

And because I haven't posted about our awesome vacation to the Bahamas yet.. here's just a few photos.  I want to go back!!!

Help a Brother Out!

To be precise, my brother.  Little brother that is.

Growing up, my brother LOVED comic books.  Everytime we went to the book store (which was about once a week), he would come out with a comic book.  He poured over those things.  We have literally cases upon cases of heavy big boxes with comic books in them.  So it only makes sense that he took his passion and created a comic book!

As a NYU grad in film, writing by day and tutoring random kids by afternoon, Ray has been working on this project for the last two years and it is so exciting to see it come to life!  But to get it started, he needs EVERYONE's HELP!  So please please check out his page, spread the word, and if possible - donate $1!  Every dollar counts.  And everyone has a dollar to spare, right?

I am quite impressed with the artwork.  I can't even wait to read the story.

Ray is on the right - that's my brother.  Please support!  Find out more here.  

Question on Book Titles...

Which book title intrigues you the most?

Yellow is a Color Too

Somewhere Between FOB and Tiger Mom

Memoirs of an ABC

Growing Up ABC


I'm currently devoting some time to that book I've been meaning to write since 2004.  Ten years is quite a bit of time, so in commemoration of my upcoming ten year college reunion in May, I'm making it a goal to finish the book I intended to write way back when I graduated college.  It was actually my senior thesis that prompted this, but I never got around to doing anything about it, and now with how easy it is to self-publish your own book on Amazon, I think that is the way to go!

So here we go!

Reflections of Ourselves

The other day a friend posted a video of her son frustrated - at the age of 3, it was absolutely adorable, but the description below the video made fun of the fact that kids are really just reflections of ourselves sometimes - eerily so, especially those of us who stay home with our kids all day.

So I got to thinking... and here's what I realized....

Jordan is exceptionally bossy.
Jordan has too much energy.
Jordan is quite loquacious.
Jordan likes to always be doing something, is easily distracted and focuses on things he loves.
Jordan over exaggerates his emotions, just for kicks (e.g. he will say he's really sad but it's almost a natural reaction rather than the truth).
Jordan is happy (outside of the emotional "I'm sad Mom" or "I'm sick Mom")
Jordan is silly.
Jordan tries to be funny and sometimes actually is.

Jordan is very much like his mom.

As for his talented side - the part where he's a pretty quick learner and athletic side - that's from his daddy.  And as for his disdain for sleeping and eating - yes, I actually remember quite vividly my parents forcing me to take another bite of this or that, of laying in bed listening to the sound of television outside at 9 PM (after we watched America's Funniest Home Videos and Simpsons on Sunday night... and I was sent to bed)... which in my later years would just be me reading at night while my parents slept ... until odd hours of the night to finish a book (not every night, but if I had a good book, then yes...) and how food eventually found its way to my heart and made a place for itself.  Things I liked... egg tarts and chicken feet at dim sum or chicken nuggets and spaghetti and cabbage or any greens for that matter - I ate a LOT of.  Everything else?  Not so much.

I wonder what Bubba will be like.

Life With Kids....

It's not always pretty or fun or even clean for that matter, but is always quite awesome.  We are having so many fun moments everyday and I am enjoying being a stay at home mom more and more everyday.  I am really lucky to have a part-time job that I can do from home and recognizing that more and more with each passing day.  There are some days when I really don't want to balance both work and being at home anymore - when I wish I was 100% working or 100% at home but overall those moments are far and few these days.  I really am enjoying being home with the boys and I love grabbing my camera to capture some of it.

It makes me think that having one child is great - but for my personality type (whatever that may be), it is so much better to have two.  To have two to be busy with, to play with, to be there for, and the more the merrier!!!  To see them interact (I know - it will be fighting one day...) is so amazing and really just tickles my heart.  To see them sit there and make sounds at each other and then laugh - it is hands down my favorite thing to observe.  I love that my sons love each other and I hope they always love each other, support each other, and are each other's best friends.

So This Is What It Feels Like!

I was quite nervous during my weekly call this morning.  Jordan's been potty training and though he's had success, it's been met with accidents as well.  He had pooped once in the potty but who knew if it was luck or not?!

I came out of the room in between calls and noticed he was already in the bathroom...on his own.  What?  Kristy, Andy's cousin who comes to help me out during my conference calls, was nowhere near.  I saw she was in the living room but wasn't sure why she wasn't in the bathroom with him.  I had given her explicit instructions to continually ask him if he needed to go pee pee or poo poo and advised Jordan that we do not pee pee or poo poo in our undies.  Maybe he was playing "pee pee" or "poo poo" (where he goes in and makes a sound like he is peeing but nothing comes out, takes some toilet paper, puts it into the toilet, and flushes).  I asked him if he was pee peeing and right as I did, I heard a tiny tinkle and then he said, "yeah, but I done" as he started to go for the toilet paper.  As I reached over to help him, I noticed some pretty big poop in the toilet!  How happy I was... not only had he PEED and POOPED, but he had gotten the initiative to go ALL ON HIS OWN.  I couldn't believe it.  I've never been so proud of my kid.  So I figured... if this is how poop feels like... I wonder what everything else feels like!  I'm hoping it's not the peak, but it sure felt good.

Of course, we're still having accidents - but the fact that I didn't have to clean up poop from the undies today makes it a great day.  I can't wait to see what it feels like when my kid accomplishes other milestones just as great and independent as peeing and pooping!

For the record, he has been potty training since Thursday, and has gotten 11 pee pee stickers and 2 poo poo stickers.  Way to go Jordan!  Keep it up because potty training while we travel is going to be quite interesting....

The scary thing is.. Andy and I got to talking and we discussed how you really just have to wait until the child is ready.  Our kid was clearly not ready the other 3 times because even after preparing and reading all the 3 day training guides and forums online, our child was simply not ready.  We aren't really doing anything differently, but he seems to get it now.

If that's the case... is that how the rest of child raising is going to be?  Will my child need some time to be ready to go to college and become financially independent and responsible?  How much can I prepare and help him and how much will it be just him deciding yes or no?  Kind of scary to think we are just a bit of an influence (we certainly kept talking to him about being a big boy and using the potty which is more than not talking about it at all right...?) - give 'em wings and let them fly... but fall they may and crash they might.  Yikes!  Parenthood is one scary feat and the learning curve sure is steep, but boy does it feel good to know they've accomplished something that you helped encourage.  

p.s. He decided to stop using that little potty (thank goodness!) and instead use the big boy potty with one of those lil seats that go on top - much easier to clean and the restroom has stopped smelling like a typical public mens' restroom (used a pretty solid combination of baking soda, lemon juice and vinegar to wipe down that bad boy), and when we're out without the seat, he likes to stand on the seat (though I've been afraid of his shoes falling in a couple of times).