I recently was given a picture of myself around 1998. The picture is a true depiction of what being a mother of a lot of children is all about. It’s not very pretty. So I’m not posting it. Seriously it was horrid.
My friends will re-post blogs on parenting or raising children with cute pictures, dressed up babies and moms with their hair all done smiling pushing their children on swings. This is pure fiction people!
Raising kids is hard work, especially if you don’t want them to have tons of therapy in their 20’s and 30’s
A little back ground:
I had 4 kids in 5.5 years, my youngest daughter was born 3+ weeks early and weighed 5.5 lb and was 16.5″ long. Then at 3 weeks old she got bronchial pneumonia and was in the hospital for a week.
It’s odd how you remember some things and not others?….There were a lot of sick babies on that floor and I know some did not make it. I am so very thankful that she did.
I divorced and remarried and had 1 more to make an un-even 5.
I would not change any of the hardship, exhaustion, depression, sleep deprivation and lack of personal hygiene for all the money in the world, raising kids has been an adventure.
I did not always get it right, not even close.
What I have learned about parenting: In no particular order.
-Children are a gift. A pooping, puking, screaming gift.
-You don’t know how much will power and stamina you have until you’ve had 3 sick kids at once and have not slept in 48 hours.
-Do not take the “parenting” books to seriously they are mostly written by people who have no children….Using common sense will get you were you need to go.
-Dogs are not children it’s not comparable….Ignore all comments that start with “My puppy kept me up all night too…..” Just smile and nod.
-Life is too short to give a shit what people think, do the best you can.
-If your mother-in-law offers to take baby for a couple of hours, seize the moment ladies. Take a shower and a nap.
-Teach your kids to say No….Just not to you
-If your child asks a question, answer it honestly…You will be thankful for fostering honesty when they are teenagers, trust me.
-Let your kids play outside in the fresh air, you will be amazed at how well they sleep at night.
-It’s OK for a boy to play with Barbie’s, and OK for girls to play with trucks….It makes them well-rounded.
-My daughters ride dirt bikes, my sons are great cooks.
-Teach boys to do laundry and girls to change oil a significant other will thank you some day.
-Discipline is the hardest thing to teach children if you don’t have any? Neither will they.
-Respect your teenagers decisions (with-in reason). Watching your kids fail is harder on you than it is on them. So let them fail, hopefully they will learn from it.
-Make home a soft place to land. This is particularly helpful when they get into late teens early 20’s. They tend to really screw up around this time.
-Perfection is not obtainable so stop putting ridiculous amounts of pressure on your kids.
-Teach them respect, not only to respect others but to respect themselves.
-Kids always take out their frustration on the one they know will always be there, feel honored when they go off on you:)
-Lastly, and this is a big one……..Let kids entertain themselves, seriously ladies? Let them play Lego by themselves…There is nothing worse than inviting a kid over to play and they think that I need to play with them the entire time or have scheduled play time that I over see…. I do not have time! Kids should make up their own fun, stop hovering.
-Oh wait one more thing….while playing by themselves if conflict arises let them handle it, let them work it out on their own….This is for their own good, when they are adults they wont be looking for mom to tune in their over bearing boss……You think I’m kidding? I’m not.
and really for real lastly.
-What you remember and what your kids remember will be two totally different realities. I never knew until my kids got older that some things I felt horribly guilty about they don’t even remember and some ridiculous argument about a pair of socks has stuck with them for 15 years.
What I have learned over the past 22 years about parenting is that every parent thinks their kids are awesome, let them talk about their kids accomplishment. Give a mom a high-five for teaching her kids to say please and thank you. Help a mom out when she’s having a crappy day. Kind words go a long way when we are all fighting the same up hill battle.
We are truly all in this together.
~Real Housewives of Maine
I don’t own a farm, but I live next door to one. And this is why I love rural America.
My youngest son helps out at Young’s farm a couple of days a week. He grains the calves, makes sure all the barn cats have water and hays the cows. It’s a lot of work for a 9-year-old boy (or so he tells me) I smile because he will most likely be the last of his generation to know what a working family farm is.
I won’t get on my soap box and shake my fist in furry that it’s not fair that the working family farms have to struggle so….Or maybe I should. But I won’t, but I really want to:( But I won’t.
I do think that it’s a work ethic that will be lost in a couple of generations. Rise before the sun, bed at sun set. Working in 100 degree heat and below 0 wind chill. Very few industries work in all conditions like the farmer.
So the other day I went down to take a few pictures. Farmer Walt told me to take as many as I’d like but not of him…I snuck a few of him while he wasn’t paying attention:) But I wont post them I’ll keep them close. I did get some great ones of my son and a couple of the ladies in the barn.
Cameron and the little Jersey
And of some hay
And of my son being a farm hand
Farm work
And of Tyler and him goofing around
As I was trolling the barn, my son yells out watch out mom they’re cleaning the calf barn and poop!!!!!……Yeah stepped in it.
It’s not the first time and I doubt it will be the last and my habit of never wearing the right shoes haunts me everyday, new sneakers are now old sneakers. I doubt my gym friends would appreciate the smell of nature as they are working out.
But all in all a fun hour down at the farm, reliving my childhood. Loving the smell of fresh-cut hay and the just the smell of a barn.
And that my son has this experience to take with him and to keep the memories of what farming used to be like.
The only draw back is the my dog loves the farm too, and loves to role in the cow patty’s…..He desperately needs a bath, PEW!!!
~The Real Housewives of Maine
My oldest son graduated from college last weekend. Not just any college but one of the best maritime colleges in the US.
I am so, so proud of him and the hard work that he has put in. But I’m a little sad. My baby is all grown up and heading out into the big bad world alone.
This is totally about me, its mothers day.
He’s so ready to get on with his life, get a great job.
Merchant Marines make ridiculous money. He has promised to put me in the good home…He’s such a good boy:)
My oldest baby is going to be on a big ship, with other smelly hard-working men and women, raising hell in foreign ports…My mind is going crazy.
Not my baby! Boo hoo, sniff, sniff:( He’s not a baby anymore, but a grown man. How did this happen? That would make me almost 47 and that is absolutely not possible!
Kids will do that to you. Make you wonder where the time has gone? It was just yesterday that I was 25, honest!
Just like when they are born. You have no idea what you’re doing. You stumble along, figure it out, have a few more kids (in my case 4 more) and then you’re in your life of kids. You mark every year by birthdays and mile stone. But no one discusses what happens after the kids are grown and leaving home.
Maybe everyone’s to tired? Or it’s a secret? Or maybe they are so excited to have their life back that they don’t want to discuss it?
I am sad and happy all at the same time.
I can now meet friends for a drink without having to find a babysitter or fit it in between 5 sporting events or activities.
I can get through a chapter in a book without having to get up because it’s “to quite”
I can mow the entire lawn without having to stop because someone comes out crying with ketchup all down the front of them.
The toilet hasn’t been clogged with Lego’s in 5 years.
Life is a cycle.
And yes I have moments where I miss them being 5, but I’ve been through it 5 times! I couldn’t do it again, I’m to tired.
I’m proud of my kids. Proud of their adult decisions and where they are headed. And my younger kids who are moving their way to adulthood, making….Well, decisions that are true to their ages. I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore.
It looks like it’s all going to work out. For today anyways…..
Happy Mothers Day to all the hard-working mothers out there that are flying by the seat of their pants. Trying to do whats best, trying get through it, trying to be good moms!
Are Mimosa’s acceptable Sunday morning beverages? I just had to yell at my 9-year-old son for slamming the new porch swing into the wall 5 times and cracking the siding…..
“SIGH”
Happy Mothers Day
I grew up with a neighborhood full of boys, no brothers. For a long while I was the only girl in the neighborhood.
Boys are so different from girls
So when I had boys I thought I would just love them and they would not be like those really ridiculous neighborhood boys that you could triple dog dare into riding their bikes off the train bridge into the river, or eat a cat food sandwich or who you could dare to balance crow bars off there forehead and both ended up in the emergency room for stitches.
Or those rotten boys that would wait for you in the trees when it was dark and scare the living be-jesus out of you while you were walking home.
Or take your training bra off the cloths line and bring it on the bus…
Do I sound bitter?
Not my boys, my boys were not going to be like that at all.
The naivety of a first time mother, I really want those days back. Truley.
We started school vacation with a bang!
My father in-laws bought my youngest son a gas powered scooter. Now I’m thinking this will go a cool 5 miles an hour as long as he wears his helmet what can be the harm? He couldn’t get hurt doing 5 miles an hour?
So let me just say that there is very little difference between men and boys as far as for thought and what might happen? Men cannot think that far ahead. It has a motor, it will be fun.
I thought the scooter was safe.
So when my neighbor Sweetie called me and told me to come quick Cameron has fallen off the scooter and hes cut up really bad, I couldn’t imagine what he had done?
He has a nice cut up his back that’s going to leave a scare and he has hurt his ribs…I’m thinking how could this have happened? Was he messing around? Not paying attention?
Well then I got on it to bring it home.
Disclaimer: Someone could have made a lot of money on AFV and I was swearing like a pirate.
This scooter goes about 35 mph wide open, I nearly (I’m going to say it) crapped my pants when I gave it some gas……Wheeled….Landed….Went from one side of the road to the other…..Screaming….Wobbling, trying to keep myself up right. It has a handlebar throttle so the more I tried to slow down the more my body would be forced forward the faster I would go.
I was hitting bumps, going off into the ditches, at this point I’m just hanging on and had a plan that when I get to my lawn I’m just going to jump off and land where I may.
I let go of the throttle…..I kept going….The throttle was stuck, well wasn’t that just swell! I am so mad at this point, because I don’t deal well with upset at all…I’m just mad!
I finally pull the throttle all the way back and come to screeching halt, I jump off and have to run 7-8 steps before I can catch myself, and land face down in the dirt.
I am cursing my father in-law 5 ways to Sunday for buying the machine from hell, I stomp back over to the scooter pick it up and realized half the neighborhood is heading up the hill some running, some…..Well it looks like they’re laughing. Really? Laughing?
Sweetie is first to reach me and exclaim “That is the funniest thing I have ever seen!”
“Well I’m glad I could entertain you Sweetie” I said “And your never getting fried broccoli from me again!”
And all the boys were saying. “Can I try out the scooter? Will you show me how to wheelie like you did?” Uhm….No I will not!
My son was bringing up the rear, holding his side, laughing and wincing all at the same time….”Hey mom the throttle is sticking, can you fix that?”
NO, I cannot fix that, and thanks for telling me son!
“Mom, you are awesome! How did you stay on, when you hit the ditch? Can you show me how to do that?”
I threw up my hands, picked up the scooter and walked to the barn thinking…
My boys are those same boys (SIGH) someone is going to triple dog dare them and they are going to do it. They are going to eat a cat food sandwich for a $1.00 and show their scars as badges of honor…
Boys are different from girls.
I went in poured myself a glass of wine, trying to get my wits about me and salvage what was left of my pride. I listened to all the neighborhood boys laugh at my antics and Sweetie defending me, Sweetie the only girl in the group. Sweetie, who will be triple dog daring every one of those boys to eat a cat food sandwich:)
Because girls are different from boys:)
Enjoy your family and friends. And all that ham, ham and more delicious yummy ham:)
Happy Easter:)
Real housewives of Maine 