They Told Me I Am a Woman

They said I can do anything.

Who “they” are, I don’t know.

But I suppose they were right.

I’ve not yet tried something I couldn’t do. I am completely confident that with sufficient time and persistence, I could do anything.  

I don’t think that’s vain. After all, I didn’t say it would be easy. I just said I could do it. Eventually.

So they were right. I can do anything.

But they were wrong, too.

See, they also said that “can” means “should” and “anything” means “everything.”

They said I can do anything, but what I heard, what I’ve recently realized I believe, is:

  I should do everything.

I can’t be the only one who heard that. Right?

Given our societies obsession with feminism, women’s lib, girl power, and strong female characters, how could we not? How could we not feel pressure to do everything and do it perfectly? Because we can. Because we should.

I’m a stay at home mom, but I feel like I should also provide a supplementary income in some creative way that takes absolutely no time away from my son. I feel like I should be a handyman, able to fix every problem around the house myself. I should handle car problems. I should have an amazing meal prepared at the same time every night. I should pre-pack aesthetically

pleasing and healthy lunches for my husband and son. I should get plenty of exercise every day. I should make sure my husband, son and dog get plenty of exercise every day.

I should host fabulous parties with all of my friends, where everything is homemade and the table is laid out with expensive dishes and centerpieces. I should have lots of friends in the first place. I should host play groups. I should spend hours reading to my son and teach him the ABC’s now that he’s almost two. (Because we’re so so behind on Kindergarten prep.)  

I should have an entire summer of fun, age appropriate “sensory” activities (whatever that means) planned for my son. I should spend hours on crafts for our five-minute family home evening lesson, because everyone knows you can’t learn anything by simply reading scriptures together.

I should be happy all the time, but my gosh! I’m exhausted just typing all of the things I should be doing. It makes me crazy just to think about it all. And I haven’t listed a small fraction of the things floating around in my head that belong on that list.

I’m sure you have your own, very long list. I don’t know if you’re a working mom, a single mom, or if you have any kids at all, but I know you have a list.

And ladies, I truly think that we can do everything. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. Whether we should is another question—one that I don’t have an answer to.

But should or should not, here is my confession: I don’t want to.

There. I said it. I don’t want to. I don’t want to work to supplement our income, or fix cars, or so many other things on the list that’s been imprisoning me.

There are so many things I don’t want to do, but there are just as many that I do.

I love cooking for my family. I love reading with my son. I love spending hours on a craft for our five-minute lesson. But when I try to do everything, I end up not loving any of it.

I want to love being a mom. I want to love being a wife. I want to love being a homemaker. So I’m going to let myself love it. I’m going to joyfully fulfill those responsibilities that I choose to take on. I’m going to let my husband fulfill the responsibilities he’s chosen to take on, and we’re going to let go of the ones that aren't that important to us.

Because I’m a woman, and I can do that too.




Do you think you should do everything? What things will you let go of?

I Don't Do Sappy

Image by Eng Chun Chia via stock.xchange

Maybe it’s because I recently had a conversation with some friends about how we met our husbands. Or maybe it’s because my hubby has been surprising me with a treat every morning this week and maybe it’s just because it’s February. Whatever the reason, I’ve been feeling particularly sappy.

I don’t normally do sappy. I’m one of those girls who cringe when I see posts on Facebook about how great/hot/sweet/thoughtful someone’s husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend is. First I think, “Oh, brother.”  And then it makes me feel guilty because I’m not sappy.  It’s not that I don’t love my husband. But if I want him to know that, I just tell him. I see no need to announce it to the world. The only person who matters already knows how I feel. Right?

And then there are the questions that somehow always come up when you meet new people. How did you and your husband meet? How did he propose? What are your favorite things about him? I have my standard, one sentence answers for these. “We met at a party. He proposed at Multnomah Falls. Uh….everything?” It’s not that I don’t have answers. I have really good answers, actually! It’s just that...well, they’re my answers! Mine and my husband’s. And really, how do you answer questions about the most important person and event in your life in the course of a simple conversation with someone you barely know anyway?

My answer to that question is: “You don’t!" You don’t share it. But as I’ve mentioned, I’m feeling particularly sappy lately. And I’m becoming sooooo forgetful since having a baby. So I’d like to write about my love story before I forget the details! Maybe one day, I will share it with you. For now, it’s mine.

The Worst Thing About Laundry

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Let’s face it. Everyone hates laundry. Of course that’s a generalization, but sometimes you have to generalize. And I’ve never met anyone who likes doing laundry so I’m taking liberties here. Everyone hates laundry. Sure, people vary on the degree to which they despise laundry day. But who actually gets excited about it? Not me. Not even a little.

And since becoming a mom, my contempt for laundry has multiplied. By like ten million. Maybe it’s because I now have twelve times the amount of laundry to do. That was unexpected. After all, how much extra laundry could one little person produce? Right? The answer is: a lot! Your days of re-wearing clothes between washings are over after you have a baby. Grimy fingers, poopy diapers, spit-up – somehow they all end up all over you. And the baby. And then you both have to change clothes. Or not. Either way, you have extra laundry. And let’s not forget about the amount of spills you’re cleaning up. Which, because of my aversion to paper towels, equates to a ton of extra laundry!

So there’s that. And then there’s the fact that even one load of laundry is so much harder than it should be. When washing clothes for two adults, I didn’t have to do anything but sort, throw them in the washer, and turn it on. But now there is soaking, scrubbing and then washing. And don’t forget which baby items were stained because you don’t want to throw them in the dryer and heat set the stain. No! They need to line dry so you can check to see if the stain was completely removed. Usually it wasn’t and you have to go through the whole process again. And hopefully it worked. Hopefully you caught them all.

But probably you didn’t. So you try not to get angry that the adorable white shirt grandma just bought now has a huge grape juice stain down the middle, but seriously!? He only wore it once! One time, and now it is ruined with no hope of saving it. This happens far, far too often. But that’s not the worst thing.

Image by Fleur Suijten via stock.xchange

The absolute worst thing about doing laundry now is that it forces me to confront something that I prefer to ignore: the fact that my baby is growing up. Way. Too. Fast.  Every time I wash a load of Cord’s clothes, I find more items that don’t fit anymore. Something that fit just yesterday (literally, he wore it yesterday) has to go into storage with the other baby items. And that is incredibly sad.

My Mommy Mission Statement

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Since learning I was pregnant with my first baby almost two years ago, I’ve wondered what kind of mom I’d be. I naively thought that by the time my baby was born, I’d have it all figured out. After all, I did have nine months to research. And research I did! I began reading article after article, blog after blog, trying to figure out how to be the best mom I could. My goal, in essence, was to have a “Mommy Mission Statement” written, notarized, and set in stone. In my mind, this mission statement would guide all of my parenting decisions. If I ever became confused, I could just refer back to my core set of beliefs about parenthood and they’d essentially make the right choice for me.

I became obsessed. I read about the Cry It Out method, and I agreed with some of its tenants. It made perfect sense in my mind that if we reward crying with love and cuddles, babies will learn that crying equates to attention. And who wants that!? But then I read about some Eastern cultures that practice co-sleeping and pick up their babies at the first little squawk. Their belief was that this helps children feel more secure and confident. And I certainly wanted my baby to know that I’d always be there for him, good or bad.

I read about spankings vs. time-outs. I read about natural or attachment parenting vs. the Babywise method. I learned how you should breastfeed exclusively until your baby turned one and I read about how you should let your baby direct weaning and feed him solids as soon as he showed interest.  I read that you shouldn’t use pacifiers if you are nursing, but that pacifiers also seem to help prevent SIDS. For every situation no matter how insignificant, I read about two, completely opposite methods of parenting. And I agreed with something from both sides in nearly every case.

My Mommy Mission Statement was not going well at all. Although I learned a great deal about everyone else’s beliefs’ about the right way to parent, I still had no idea what kind of parent I was going to be. I wasn’t sure what I believed about parenting. And just when I stumbled upon something I thought I could come to believe, I read something else that completely contradicted it. And I thought I could believe that too.

Labor and delivery rolled around as it inevitably does, but I still had not figured this motherhood thing out. So I kept reading. I hadn’t yet accepted the fact that there will always be two opposite ways of doing things; or that one of my virtues and vices is the ability to see and agree with both sides. This was useful when I had to write an argumentative essay in high school because I could successfully argue for either side. It will also probably come in handy when I have to mediate fights between children, but it’s really inconvenient when I need to have a strong opinion on something.  It made writing my mission statement incredibly difficult.

Difficult as it was, I felt that this endeavor was too important to quit on. So I kept on reading. I felt kind of like Forrest Gump. I just kept on reading. And reading. And reading. And reading. Until I just didn’t feel like it anymore. And so I stopped.

That point for me was this past month. I did not give up on my mission statement. But reading wasn’t getting me there. I’d read all I could. I read about me. What I, as a parent, should do. Over and over again, I read about me. And the question suddenly occurred to me, “When did parenting become about the parents?”

 When my sister and I were fighting, I don’t remember my mom saying, ”Ok. Now, I’m an attachment parent. What would an attachment parent do in this situation?”  When my baby sister was born, my mom didn’t say, “What sleep training method should I use?” And when her baby cried, my mom didn’t think, “Oh no! If I pick her up now, I’ll  be teaching her that crying gets attention and I’ll ruin her forever!” My mom didn’t do any of those things.

What she did do was love us. She listened to us. She got to know us. My mom recognized that she had three, individual daughters.  She knew and loved each of us, and she let that guide her parenting choices. She didn’t parent Mallary and Shaylee the same way she parented me, because she knew we were different people and we would respond best to different things. My mom and dad’s method of parenting wasn’t about them. It was about us.

So after twenty-three months of obsessing and researching, this realization has finally allowed me to begin writing my Mommy Mission Statement.

“I am a parent committed to raising a healthy, happy, responsible, and kind child. I will do this by being a “child-focused” parent. I will get to know my child as an individual by listening both to what he says, and what he doesn’t say. I will love him no matter what. I recognize that when I have more children, each of them will be different and as such will need different things. I believe this means there is no one right parenting style and I believe that as I listen to, love, and get to know my children, I will learn what type of parent each child needs. My abundant love for them will allow me to be that parent.”

I didn’t end up with the clear cut, notarized mission statement I wanted.  It won’t make decisions for me. It certainly leaves room for me to change my mind.  But it’s not about me. It’s about my children. Don’t get me wrong. I definitely see value in being a self-aware parent. How else will you recognize your mistakes and fix them?  But I see more value in being aware of your child and what they need. I’m not going to stop reading parenting articles. But my goal is to make informed decisions based on what each of my children need and not on what some scholar or parenting expert believes is best. After all, they don’t know my child. I do. I believe the best type of parent is one whose parenting decisions are more focused on their children than themselves. Those are the type of parents I had and that’s the type of parent I choose to be. That’s my Mommy Mission Statement.

Do you have a Mommy Mission Statement? What does/would it include?

How To: Cope With Sleepy Mornings

Wake to a crying baby. Lay in bed hoping he’s just sleep-screaming. Silence? Go back to sleep, but do not get your hopes up. I cannot emphasize this enough. Do. Not. Get. Your. Hopes. Up. More screaming indicates that he’s up for the day.

Roll out of bed, being careful to make sure your feet hit the floor before the rest of you. Make a bottle. Lay back down in bed, placing the screaming baby next to you. Proceed to give him the bottle. Unclench your teeth when the crying stops.

After breakfast and a diaper change, carefully examine the nursery floor. For best results, you WILL need to see it through the eyes of a child.  This may involve laying your cheek against the carpet and army crawling throughout the room. Stay alert. If you sense yourself succumbing to drowsiness, stand up and do up to (but not exceeding) 25 jumping jacks. This counts as your daily workout, and will sharpen your mind as you look for potential safety hazards.

Pick up and discard the toilet paper the dog shredded.Wonder how he got toilet paper. Try not to wonder if it was used. Unplug the nightlights and plug in the outlet safety covers. Unplug the space heater and store it in the closet. Wonder why you are using a heater in May. Pick up and discard the pieces of the plastic purple penguin the dog chewed up. Wonder why a penguin is purple. Stay focused! Unplug the humidifier and ensure it is out of reach. Then push it 5 inches further back on the dresser as an extra precaution. Plug in more outlet safety covers. Do another cursory examination of the room for any safety hazards you may have missed.

After ensuring that the nursery is baby proofed, spread a blanket and lay on nursery floor with your child as he licks books and throws every noise-making toy he can get his hands on. Take a breath as you look at your son and realize he’s just made this the best morning of your life.