Guilty Mom Confessions

I think I will probably add to this one along the way but here are some of my top guilty confessions in no particular order.. Feel free to add yours too!

1. My son eats PB&J probably more than any other food. Luckily its organic peanut butter and fresh fruit preserves on whole wheat bread, but still that cant be great.

2. He also doesnt really know any kids songs but can sure sing the words to Mumford & Sons, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Christina Perri, etc. I should feel worse about this but I dont.

3. Day before payday lunch for N: PB&J (surprise) on crackers. Yep.

4. When Im having an "off mommy day" and I use an impatient tone with N. He immediately lets me know with a similar tone.

5. My kids watch way too much TV. Its just so much easier when dishes need to be done, floors vacuumed, and showers taken to have the TV on to distract. This will hopefully be remedied soon.

OK y'all those are the top 5 guilty mom confessions for now. These are obviously just the things in life that arent majorly serious. The blog couldnt be long enough to cover every real parenting mistake Ive made nor would I want to throw myself into the spiral of depression rehashing all those memories and "off" days. Ill add more to come as Im sure they will come about. :)

~K

A letter of apology to my son...

I have some major mommy guilt for some of my not so shining moments as a mom with my oldest son. This is a letter of apology to him, he's too young to know or understand now, but hopefully this will help me to let go of my feelings and its something he can read later.


To my dear Baby Bear,
   Sometimes in life we have the best intentions and ideas of how things should be, then in the grand scheme of becoming a stronger person and learning lessons, God and the Universe send you these life lessons and while you're in the middle of them they make no sense whatsoever. Depending on the lesson or how well you're learning it, the process could take weeks, months, or years.
   When your daddy and I decided we wanted to have a baby I had dreamed of you for so long and didn't think I would ever meet you. When I saw you were a boy and I was getting a son I cried so much because I was so happy. The first time I held you I loved you and I knew you loved me. In those moments I never imagined our lives would change so drastically over the next 2 1/2 years.
Being a 1st time mommy was not as easy as I thought it would be. I failed at things I thought should have been easy. Then I had to return to work 12 weeks later and hand my beautiful baby boy over to someone else to watch 10 hrs a day 4 -5 times a week. The first year is such a tender fragile time for bonding in  my opinion and instead of me being there for all your firsts someone else was. I couldn't help that, not working wasn't an option at that time. Then life got more hectic, we moved, daddy and I started to feel the pressure of a new marriage with a new baby and more than normal life stress, we were not equipped to handle it and we broke. Finances hit rock bottom as the electricity got too high to pay and was shut off. I couldn't let you stay with us during that time with no hot water or way to heat your food, I sent you to stay with Granny and Papaw as much as I could. I didn't know what else to do. We moved again, trying to start over again, trying to figure out how to fix  us without you knowing how broken we were. The next 8 months was me working 50+ hours a week, barely seeing you, missing even more of your 1st moments. Then it all went to hell. We lost everything, we lost the car, the house, daddy's job, a new baby. Mommy made so many mistakes in such a short time. We moved into a place that was too small for us all but were so lucky to have a friend let us in. I got so sad, I was sad about everything, I couldn't figure out how I had planned for the happily ever after and it wasn't here. I just couldn't be strong anymore and just when I thought I couldn't break anymore, I did.
I'm telling you all these things so you understand the apology I'm about to make.
    I am so sorry baby bear. I'm so sorry I wasn't a good mommy for the first couple years. I'm sorry I didn't know how to balance everything in my life and make sure you still left loved. I'm so sorry that I let the pain and hurt overwhelm me and not put you first. I'm so sorry I missed all of those great first moments. Every time your brother does something for the first time and I'm so happy to be there a lot of that comes from how much it hurts I couldn't be there for you.
     I love you so very much. You are now and will always be one of the answers to my prayers. I thank God everyday you chose me to be your mommy. I hope one day you will understand that I am constantly trying to be the best mom I can be. I hope you never have to understand first hand the things your daddy and I have been through. My wish for this letter is to help me forgive myself and understand I did the best I could with what I had and if you ever look back on those first couple years of your life and wonder why things were the way they were this will explain it.
Thank you for your love and Thank you for letting me be your mommy. I love you.

Watching myself die

Its a funny and odd thing, watching yourself die. I feel like I'm watching the last 10 years of my life from someone elses eyes.. I'm watching this person that people think I am, that Ive been pretending to be and then lying to myself to say that I'm rebelling and pretending to someone else when I actually act like 'me'. The last couple months have had so many amazing changes for the better. I'm saying goodbye to the people of my past that have dropped out of my life whether accidently or on purpose, Thank you for being a teacher of the moment and leading me to the next step. Looking behind you longingly makes you bitter and wistful. I'm letting that go. I can only be grateful for my choices and mistakes because they have made the life I have now and I can only say "I did the best with what I had at the time" and learn from it. I am finally getting to the point in my life where I can be myself, I can be me because I am finally finding out who that is. I'm watching the shell of who I thought I was who people think I am die and out of her ashes is me, really me. I'm the weird spiritual one, they borderline hippie, the girl with her roots planted firmly in mother earth but her head in the clouds. I'm going to be the old lady with a messy herb garden and a room designated for painting. I'm the crystal wearing, positive thinking, overly sensitive, trusting, loving, hopeful woman that will always be there for the people I care about. I care too much, I think too much and don't laugh enough. I'm imperfect and learning that perfection and normality is boring. I'm excited to turn 30 because I think it ll be empowering. I love watching this self die, I love feeling this way. Its confusing but exciting. I know that I will learn through every mistake, every experience and every day. I will die and be reborn over and over and continue to get to know myself and the people around me and hopefully embrace the changes that make me the woman I am and only become stronger, happier, wiser, more intuitive and spiritually beautiful every day until it radiates out of me like light shining through the clouds.

My life as Laundry

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.  ~Phyllis Diller

Trying to spring clean with 2 kids and keep up on normal housework makes me wish I was a hindu goddess instead of a domestic one. I need 5 arms or maybe a clone. The last couple weeks I feel like Im in groundhog day constantly reliving the same situation.. Wake up, make bed, feed kids, potty train, change diaper, put baby M down for a nap and attempt to start spring cleaning, get interrupted by something or someone and then pick up the same things I picked up yesterday all in the midst of never ending laundry. All week its like Ive been fighting it, constantly grumpy. Then I realized Im doing the control freak martyr thing. Im trying to control every minute of how I do something and when it inevitably goes wrong I get frustrated then want to point out to myself how much I sacrifice. I stopped and thought about it last night and today.. Thats not what Im a SAHM for. I wanted this sacrifice. I wanted to repeatedly do laundry and dishes because the payment for that is seeing baby M's first smiles or teaching N how to read. I get to be here for all these wonderful learning experiences. I think if the chaos was just within my house it would be manageable but its everywhere right now it seems leaving me feeling unorganized and helpless. Can I have that super mom feeling back I had a few weeks ago?  Maybe once I get through spring cleaning and back to maintaining a clean house Ill feel better theres just a lot of changes recently. I just need to keep focus that the really important things in my life are not and have never been how clean or organized my house is. 

Must go now, more laundry is calling my name after baby M goes down for another nap and this Domestic Goddess has another redbull.

My journey here..

“We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us never lost sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way.”

     Up to this point I haven't really blogged very much and when I do it's more a rant on my mind. I decided to change that and start "mommy blogging" and add in things about my spirituality, beliefs, life, family etc.. Why the change? Well that's what this blog is about. My journey and path that has brought me to this point in my life. Let's go back a bit.
   My whole life I always felt like there was a box or type I needed to fit into. When I got into any relationship I transformed myself to fit the perfect image of what I thought the person wanted, always loosing any remnants of myself. When I met my husband J he was the only person that didn't want me to be anything but myself. After 3 years and an engagement we decided to have our first baby. We got married on Earth Day 2007 while I was 5 months pregnant with our son. Our baby bear was born Aug of the same year. I was whirled into again trying to fit into the box of being a mom, but wait, I am also trying to be a wife and still keep an identity of my own. Postpartum depression hit and I had to go back to work when he turned 12 weeks. For the next 2 years I worked full time or more and missed all his firsts. J and I hit hard times and separated for almost a year. I felt completely disconnected from any idea of a family that I had originally wanted. I searched for happiness, attention, and love. I never found it. I experimented with different religions and spirituality to answer long time questions I had and still nothing. I finally found The Secret, What The Bleep do we Know, Louise Hay, Dr Wayne Dyer Etc and started to change my thinking and then the "shift" happened. My life fell apart. J and I got back together, hit more problems, we lost a baby, J lost his job, I was out from my job for a month because of the baby loss and bills piled up, then rent, then eviction. In 24 hours we packed up everything, threw out a bunch of stuff and moved our 3 br apt into 2 rooms at a friends house. Then I got worse. This particular house has alot of negative energy that got to me. Loosing the baby got to me. J and I's problems got to me and I got even more depressed. Insomnia kicked in so I'd stay up till 7:30 in the morning but then stay in bed staring at nothing till 3pm. I was a terrible mommy. I would never hit or abuse my kids ever. I don't even spank, but I was so absent and self absorbed, it was sad. Jan 2010 we moved back into our own place where we've been for over a year now. We got pregnant with another boy (Born Nov 2010) and I stay home now. I started digging into my spirituality, I started tackling the issues of my past, J and I are in counseling and we started taking Love & Logic parenting classes. BabyBear has become a completely different kid and I am seeing all the things with Sweet Potato that I missed the first time. I'm plugged in. My son misses me when I'm gone and loves to be around me again. I'm finally the mommy I have always wanted to be. I'm finally the wife I want to be and I'm starting to become the person I want to be. And that brings me here. Now you know a little more about this Meditating Mama I can start blogging about my silly crazy loud fun random life. I hardly ever wear shoes, when I do they're usually flip flops, I typically stay in my jammies all day unless I have to go somewhere. I'm potty training my 3 year old and cloth diapering my 4 month old (both foreign things to me) I'm in the middle of spring cleaning my house and I get to share all my random crazy thoughts with the world.

Shane Knox

Sorry its been so long since Ive posted something new, things have been hectic and crazy. I will be doing more frequent blogs and in the mean time I wanted to take a moment to recognize someone that has given me vision and direction. Please visit shaneknox.com for more information on what he does and how to schedule an appt!
Love and Light,
Karen

When I think of God

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation... Albert Einstein

I could not agree with Einstein more.
So often its ingrained in us that God is this entity that has created us in His own image, He is our Father, and yet we are sent through life expecting the worst to happen with the only explanation of "well this is life, we are going to be constantly tested and tried so we can prove our love and devotion to God so we can make it to His Kingdom or heaven" After 26 years of living this life, sitting at night crying and wondering WHY WHY WHY I sought clarity. I wanted to understand WHY we would be put through so much only to die and HOPE we did enough good works to have salvation. Living through the back and forth of "if it feels good to you then it must be of Satan", and when something bad happens Satan put it there OR God could be testing you... HUH? This last year or so of my life, everything has been turned upside down and I sat one night again wondering WHY my God that loves me so very much would watch this happen, so I prayed and I meditated and I was answered. The things Ive gone through were some direct situations I frequently judged others on. I started to monitor my own thinking and saw how negative my thoughts were. I started to challenge EVERYTHING I thought I believed in, and found at the end that we ARE created in His Image and we ARE His children and as a mother (a human one at that) I look at my son and I know I don't ever want to see him suffer, I want to develop him to have all the right tools and resources to be a great adult. I don't want to punish him and guilt him, I want to love and grow him into making the right choice, if I think that way and I am a branch of God then I can only come to the conclusion that God as well wants to love us and grow us (his children) into a wonderful person. He tells us to be child like and as adults we teach our children to be less child like. So I then started to observe children, non judgemental, loving, imaginative, creative, caring, and playful. I start to realize how "adulthood" turned me from all those things to a negative, cynical person. So I challenged that too. I'm still going down this road, through this journey and I am becoming so much more happy and fulfilled. I now know that God GIVES us all the tools and the gifts, That we are already creators, WE create our lives and our destiny, we can choose to happen to life or we can choose to let life happen to us (a new fave quote) I don't believe in a God that is insecure enough to put his children through hell to prove their love for Him, that's a human emotion, I do however believe in a human heart that has become so impure and tough and detached that we now create our circumstances, we are far more powerful and accountable than we realize or maybe more that we want to acknowledge because THEN we have no one else to blame. I believe in an all loving God that guides us, talks to us and sends us messages of light and hope when our thoughts or choices has given us a chance to grow and develop. The more we can let Gods light and love shine through us as his example and choose to be loving, pure, and forgiving the closer we are to Him in those moments. We are human so we will make mistakes and not accept the consequences and then have to repeat that lesson again. Its not punishment from our loving Father, its us creating our life minute by minute, action by action, thought by thought. When we can stop and realize WE are in control and He is behind us (like a parent coaching the child riding a bike or taking those first steps) knowing and believing as a fact that we are the ones responsible for our lives, its a great feeling, you don't resent God you embrace him and want to strive that much more to shine on. I imagine my God as a serene flow of water, a gentle breeze, a caring touch, a warm smile. It goes against everything I thought I knew and I am glad I challenged and rose out of the old me.