©Stephenie Freeman
I spend my life in a hurry, constantly trying to get everyone around me to do the same.
“Hurry up and eat your dinner.”
“Hurry up and get dressed.”
“Hurry up we’ve got to go.”
I am the only one in my family who’s in any kind of a rush. My kids inherited the Golfer’s laid back nature. Being still, being in no hurry to go anywhere or do anything, goes against every fiber of my being. I don’t have time to be laid back. There is always somewhere to be, something to do, someone who is waiting on us. I’m a person who runs on time and expects everyone else to do the same—including my children.
Waiting on people isn’t a virtue that I possess. I’m quick to honk the horn, letting you know that you need to hurry up. I’m big on alarm clocks and watches and schedules to keep us on time and ahead of the game. I figure that age will cause me to slow down eventually, but for now I choose to go full speed ahead.
My kids feel the opposite. They take their time, leisurely enjoying the world, never in a hurry to get anywhere anytime soon. My kids are too busy discovering roly-polies on the driveway, waving hello to the neighbor’s dog or putting their Crocs on the wrong feet, all of it slowing me down and driving me crazy.
As summertime approaches, I am filled with mixed emotions. Part of me is excited. No alarm going off at the crack of dawn. No homework to help with. No lunches to pack. I’ll admit that I’m looking forward to it. There’s a reason it is called summer “break.”
Summer break is also about breaking from your daily school year routine. This is the part that I’m not looking forward to. I’ll be forced to slow down because there won’t be any reason to constantly hurry to get somewhere. I guess they don’t call them the lazy days of summer for nothing.
But I don’t like being lazy. As a stay-at-home mama, I feel compelled to fill every second of my day with some kind of activity or chore or errand. When you work inside of the home your work constantly surrounds you. There’s always something to do and I’m always in a hurry to get to that next thing.
However, my hurried nature might be doing more harm than good. I’ve begun to notice that being in a hurry leaves little breathing room for things like unplanned fun. There’s no time for spontaneous playdates or trips to the library. There’s no stopping at the park on the way to the grocery store. Those sorts of last minute choices have no place in our hurried schedule.
Whether I like it or not my children are growing up and in my quest to be the best mother I can be, filling my days with hurried schedules and responsibilities, I am missing out on a lot of fun that I could be having fun with my kids.
Last week, two cases of strep throat forced me to slow down. As the boys convalesced on the couch, I had no choice but to abandon all our plans and schedule. I could easily have spent my day catching up on housework, perhaps work on those photo albums that needed updating or reorganize the closets.
Instead, I chose to sit and be lazy. I sat on the couch between the sniffling and the coughing and simply loved on my sick babies all day. It made us all feel a lot better.
This might just be the first case of strep throat that ever inspired someone to change, but that’s exactly what happened. When the Golfer asked me what activities I had planned for the summer, what our schedule looked like, he was shocked when I told him that I had nothing planned, nothing scheduled.
And I would have explained why if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out the door.
Roses of Motherhood
What I looked like before children...
What I look like after children...
Everything's sagging, my flaws are totally exposed, and what isn't drooping is about to fall off.
What I look like after children...
Everything's sagging, my flaws are totally exposed, and what isn't drooping is about to fall off.{photo credit: mine. roses: also mine. iceberg roses in my front yard or what is left of them anyway.}
My soapbox: Jon & Kate + 8 = Divorce
photo courtsey of usmagazine.com
During the long weekend of doing nothing, like most of you I got sucked into watching the Jon and Kate Plus 8 marathon on TLC.
I hate television marathons. They ALWAYS suck me in and I'm not sure why. It's pretty smart of TLC to do it on this long weekend when lots of people are sitting at home doing nothing. Even my best friend who has been laid up after surgery and has never, ever watched the show (or cared to) got sucked into watching the marathon.
So of course I was looking forward to watching the premiere tonight. It's one of those things that I wasn't quite sure why I was "looking forward to it." I just knew that I couldn't miss it.
It was a train wreck that I couldn't wait to watch.
Apparently the rest of the world also couldn't wait to watch either. During the show, Twitter was going nuts on the topic. I looked up the word "Kate" under Trending Topics and every couple of seconds there was a request to refresh for the 11, 14, or 20 new tweets about the show.
It's quite obvious that there are a lot of us out there that over the weekend became toatlly invested in these people's lives. I'll admit it; I was curious to see what would happen. Would they get into it as they finally came face to face on the couch like all of the previews suggested? Would TLC allow us to see/know what the future holds for this family and this couple?
After 1 hour and 13 minutes of watching, here's what I know: this marriage is in trouble. Big time. If I was a betting woman, I would drive to Vegas right now and put all of our savings on the bet that they will end up in divorce court.
Do I care? No, not really. I'm big on, "Hey your life is your life. You stay out of mine and I'll stay out of yours." But there was a moment during the show when I emotionally connected in a weird kind of a way. It freaked me out a little bit.
It was during the party scene. It was one of the 8. I'm not sure which little girl it was (Alexis maybe?) but she was talking to her daddy about her little friend at the party and hugs and kisses and she started to hug and kiss on daddy and before you knew what was coming, she was asking her daddy to please not go away anymore and he gave her a lame ass answer of daddies having to leave for work sometimes.
Yeah, right.
Did that not speak volumes about what has been going on in their house? She's five. She's not an idiot. She's knows her daddy's not leaving for work. Give the girl a little more credit.
I am a child of divorce. I grew up to be a happy, well-adjusted adult and harbor no ill will towards my parents. (Not about the divorce anyway.) But let me tell you, during the years preceding my parents' divorce I was totally and completely aware that my parents were having huge issues. There was so much tension and so much arguing. Towards the end, my father moved out for a while. Even though I was only eight at the time (same age as Jon and Kate's oldest girls) I could sense what was coming.
If you watched the show, did you hear Kate talking about how helpful the older girls had gotten? Those girls know that something is up. They know that there dad is gone when he should be at home. They know that their mom is sad and not acting the same. They notice that their mom and dad don't hug and kiss as much as they used to, and whether they are doing it consciously or unconsciously, they are stepping in to try to make things better.
This is what breaks my heart. Not Jon and Kate sitting motionless on the couch. Not Kate getting teary at the end. What breaks my heart is knowing that those kids are walking around on egg shells, knowing that at any minute they might be called downstairs to hear the news that they've knew all along was coming.
That's what happened to me anyway.
Did anyone else find it sad that Kate (and Jon too) just kept saying, "It's all for my kids. It's all about my kids. I breathe for my kids. I get up for my kids." Blah, blah, blah.
That's all well and good, but perhaps that's what brought you and your husband to this horrible place. Life can't be all about your kids. There's is nothing you can do that will benefit your children more than loving your spouse. I wanted her to say something, anything, about her marriage, about wanting things to be better, but she never did. Neither did he.
It can't all be about your kids. At some point, it needs to be about the two of you and only the two of you.
And if not, get ready to spend some of that TLC money on shrinks for 8 kids.
And that's all I've got to say about that.
I hate television marathons. They ALWAYS suck me in and I'm not sure why. It's pretty smart of TLC to do it on this long weekend when lots of people are sitting at home doing nothing. Even my best friend who has been laid up after surgery and has never, ever watched the show (or cared to) got sucked into watching the marathon.
So of course I was looking forward to watching the premiere tonight. It's one of those things that I wasn't quite sure why I was "looking forward to it." I just knew that I couldn't miss it.
It was a train wreck that I couldn't wait to watch.
Apparently the rest of the world also couldn't wait to watch either. During the show, Twitter was going nuts on the topic. I looked up the word "Kate" under Trending Topics and every couple of seconds there was a request to refresh for the 11, 14, or 20 new tweets about the show.
It's quite obvious that there are a lot of us out there that over the weekend became toatlly invested in these people's lives. I'll admit it; I was curious to see what would happen. Would they get into it as they finally came face to face on the couch like all of the previews suggested? Would TLC allow us to see/know what the future holds for this family and this couple?
After 1 hour and 13 minutes of watching, here's what I know: this marriage is in trouble. Big time. If I was a betting woman, I would drive to Vegas right now and put all of our savings on the bet that they will end up in divorce court.
Do I care? No, not really. I'm big on, "Hey your life is your life. You stay out of mine and I'll stay out of yours." But there was a moment during the show when I emotionally connected in a weird kind of a way. It freaked me out a little bit.
It was during the party scene. It was one of the 8. I'm not sure which little girl it was (Alexis maybe?) but she was talking to her daddy about her little friend at the party and hugs and kisses and she started to hug and kiss on daddy and before you knew what was coming, she was asking her daddy to please not go away anymore and he gave her a lame ass answer of daddies having to leave for work sometimes.
Yeah, right.
Did that not speak volumes about what has been going on in their house? She's five. She's not an idiot. She's knows her daddy's not leaving for work. Give the girl a little more credit.
I am a child of divorce. I grew up to be a happy, well-adjusted adult and harbor no ill will towards my parents. (Not about the divorce anyway.) But let me tell you, during the years preceding my parents' divorce I was totally and completely aware that my parents were having huge issues. There was so much tension and so much arguing. Towards the end, my father moved out for a while. Even though I was only eight at the time (same age as Jon and Kate's oldest girls) I could sense what was coming.
If you watched the show, did you hear Kate talking about how helpful the older girls had gotten? Those girls know that something is up. They know that there dad is gone when he should be at home. They know that their mom is sad and not acting the same. They notice that their mom and dad don't hug and kiss as much as they used to, and whether they are doing it consciously or unconsciously, they are stepping in to try to make things better.
This is what breaks my heart. Not Jon and Kate sitting motionless on the couch. Not Kate getting teary at the end. What breaks my heart is knowing that those kids are walking around on egg shells, knowing that at any minute they might be called downstairs to hear the news that they've knew all along was coming.
That's what happened to me anyway.
Did anyone else find it sad that Kate (and Jon too) just kept saying, "It's all for my kids. It's all about my kids. I breathe for my kids. I get up for my kids." Blah, blah, blah.
That's all well and good, but perhaps that's what brought you and your husband to this horrible place. Life can't be all about your kids. There's is nothing you can do that will benefit your children more than loving your spouse. I wanted her to say something, anything, about her marriage, about wanting things to be better, but she never did. Neither did he.
It can't all be about your kids. At some point, it needs to be about the two of you and only the two of you.
And if not, get ready to spend some of that TLC money on shrinks for 8 kids.
And that's all I've got to say about that.
Where did I go?
It has been a while since I've written about my Weighty Issues. You thought I had fallen off the wagon hadn't you?
Nope! I've still been at it. I've still been meeting with my trainer twice a week (versus three times a week when I first started) and she's still kicking my butt. But I've learned to enjoy it (as much as you can enjoy sweating, groaning, and grunting your way through an hour workout.)
And it has paid off! I have lost...wait for it...a total of 11 inches from head to toe (or should I say boobs to butt.) 11 whole inches! That's almost like, a whole ruler's worth of inches that are no longer attached to my body!
I chose to focus on the inches lost instead of the pounds lost. I wanted my "transformation" to be more about how I felt versus what the scale told me. In the past, I always got so frustrated with the number on the scale that I usually ended up quiting. I didn't want that to happen to me again since I tend to lose weight slowly (about 1/2 pound to a pound a week.) I knew that only worrying about the number on the scale would sabotage my progress.
Before we started, I measured the following: tummy, butt, bi-cep, and bust. In the last 20 weeks I've taken my measurements twice, each time finding that I had lost more inches. Of course I've been weighing myself too and have been losing pounds as well. But as expected, the weight loss has been slow. So keeping up with my measurements have kept me motivated. The two places I have lost the most? My butt and waist (obviously the two places I needed to lose them!) I have lost 4 inches on both! (Plus 2 around my butt and 1 around my bi-cep in case you're keeping track.) Crazy!
But now summer is almost upon us and I've made an important decision. I'm going to give up my trainer for the summer and see how I do on my own. Why, you ask, would I choose to do this when I've been making such good progress with her? For one thing, having a personal trainer is expensive. She's been worth every penny, but even she says that I can't keep going to her forever. At some point I've got to try and do all of this on my own. I figured that summertime would be a good time to start. We'll see how it goes and if I need to, I can always go back to her in the fall.
I'll continue to keep you updated on my Weighty Issues, but if I kept losing these inches, I might just disappear for good!
Nope! I've still been at it. I've still been meeting with my trainer twice a week (versus three times a week when I first started) and she's still kicking my butt. But I've learned to enjoy it (as much as you can enjoy sweating, groaning, and grunting your way through an hour workout.)
And it has paid off! I have lost...wait for it...a total of 11 inches from head to toe (or should I say boobs to butt.) 11 whole inches! That's almost like, a whole ruler's worth of inches that are no longer attached to my body!
I chose to focus on the inches lost instead of the pounds lost. I wanted my "transformation" to be more about how I felt versus what the scale told me. In the past, I always got so frustrated with the number on the scale that I usually ended up quiting. I didn't want that to happen to me again since I tend to lose weight slowly (about 1/2 pound to a pound a week.) I knew that only worrying about the number on the scale would sabotage my progress.
Before we started, I measured the following: tummy, butt, bi-cep, and bust. In the last 20 weeks I've taken my measurements twice, each time finding that I had lost more inches. Of course I've been weighing myself too and have been losing pounds as well. But as expected, the weight loss has been slow. So keeping up with my measurements have kept me motivated. The two places I have lost the most? My butt and waist (obviously the two places I needed to lose them!) I have lost 4 inches on both! (Plus 2 around my butt and 1 around my bi-cep in case you're keeping track.) Crazy!
But now summer is almost upon us and I've made an important decision. I'm going to give up my trainer for the summer and see how I do on my own. Why, you ask, would I choose to do this when I've been making such good progress with her? For one thing, having a personal trainer is expensive. She's been worth every penny, but even she says that I can't keep going to her forever. At some point I've got to try and do all of this on my own. I figured that summertime would be a good time to start. We'll see how it goes and if I need to, I can always go back to her in the fall.
I'll continue to keep you updated on my Weighty Issues, but if I kept losing these inches, I might just disappear for good!
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