What Gives?

Perfectionist:  a person who is displeased by anything that does not meet very high standards

I'm a perfectionist.  I get it from my mom.  My perfectionism is pretty mild by her standards but I'm a perfectionist just the same.  Nothing is ever good enough for me.  I am always striving to do better, to be better.  It's exhausting.  

I thought I'd actually improved over the years.  My house does not have to be spotless anymore. I can leave home without showering or putting on makeup (with two small kids, I'd never get out of the house otherwise). I no longer feel the need to scrub the baseboards before my mother comes to visit.  In reality, though, I haven't become less of a perfectionist; I've just focused my high standards elsewhere - meal planning, couponing, cooking, mothering.

Since my post entitled sMOTHERed my husband has been graciously trying to help me find some rest and rejuvenation.  It's nothing he didn't know already, but I think seeing my feelings of exhaustion written out like that made what I'm going through all the more real for him.  So today he comes home from church (I've been staying home on Sundays for some much-needed alone time) and tells me that they talked about resting; that in today's fast-paced society, we often can't keep up a sustainable pace without rest.  

So he asks me what is one thing I see him doing that is not sustainable at the pace at which he's going.  That's easy: his job.  

Next, he asks me what is one thing I'm doing that is not sustainable.  I know the answer, but I don't want to utter it aloud so I ask him to tell me: trying to be a perfect mother.  

YOWZA!!  He hit that nail on the head.  Have I told you how brilliant and my husband is?  Well, I don't always appreciate it.  

"You've got to let something go, Renee" he tells me.  "You can't sustain this pace anymore."

He's right.  He's totally right.  But here's the rub:  

When you're a perfectionist, it seems like there's nothing you're able to let go of.  If you're not going to do it perfectly, then you might as well not do it at all.  So what gives?

Do I stop planning tasty, healthy, economical meals for my family and purchase a bunch of frozen convenience meals instead?  This would go against our goal of eating less processed food.

Do I stop spending hours each week matching grocery sale adds to coupons in order to get the most groceries for our money?  Nope.  Our budget just doesn't allow for that.

Do I stop scouring Pinterest for ideas and tips to add to my ongoing spreadsheet for our upcoming Disney vacation?  What if I miss something that could make or break our time there?  

There's never a good answer for me.  I know it's ridiculous and I know that if I don't let something go right now, I'm going to implode (that's probably why I'm lying in bed right now nursing a cold).      

The essential message about rest is this:  

Your life moves to a better place when you move at a sustainable pace. 

I want my life to move to a better place.  I want to feel happier and calmer and more rested.  And the universe has just helped me take a baby step in that direction.  While I'm in bed sick, my husband is in charge.  He's deciding what to cook; he's deciding when to clean up; he's deciding how to entertain the kids.  It's not at ALL how I would do it, but you know what?  I'm finding myself able to look the other way and enjoy the bigger gift he's giving me.

The gift of rest.  

Encouragement

Just when you think you can't take anymore, God sends you a message to carry on.  Watch this video of sweet little Joel and his amazingly strong mom.  If she can do it, so can I.  

Keep your tissues handy!

sMOTHERed

I've been finding myself drawn to my bed a lot lately - not wanting to get up in the morning, napping during the day, spending my alone time watching TV or surfing the web from the comfort of my mattress.  This behavior can only mean one thing:  I've got emotions that want to come out and I don't want to deal with them. 

I absolutely HATE feeling my emotions and I'll do just about anything to stuff them down.  My preferred methods of stuffing are eating and curling up in my bed under a thick layer of blankets.  I've been doing the latter for a couple of weeks now.  

I started this blog as a way of helping myself get in touch with my emotions - a diary of sorts.  It's my accountability partner.  The plan is that when I feel the slightest twinge of anger or sadness or guilt or despair, I write about it.  But sometimes, I push those feelings so far down that I don't even recognize they're there.  That is, until they come bubbling up to the surface.

Yesterday, they came bubbling up in the form of anger.  

My daughter woke up with what appeared to be a sinus infection, so I planned to keep her home from school and take her to the doctor at 8:00 am.  In the 45-minutes before we left the house, I had to feed my children, help them get dressed, clean up the kitchen, get myself dressed and pile us all in the car.  There was no time for coffee or food for myself.  By the time we got home from the doctor's office and pharmacy, it was 10:00 am and I was pretty cranky.  I just wanted to sit down with my latte and have some breakfast.  But no; the kids were ready for a snack and my daughter wanted tea with honey and they couldn't find the TV remote and I had to put away some groceries and the dishwasher needed to be emptied.  The more I told them to wait the more impatient my kids got until I explained (read: yelled) that I wasn't doing anything else for them until I had a chance to have my coffee and egg sandwich.  I was angry the rest of the day.

I know you moms can relate to this.  

I've been doing the stay-at-home mom thing for the past 6 years.  It's a job I have truly enjoyed, but it has been one of the hardest jobs I have ever done in my entire life.  It comes with very little time off and even fewer vacations.  There are no sick days and I don't get paid.  Don't even get benefits.  The hours are long and I don't get enough time to myself.  Crazy, huh?  Who would take a job like that?  

But being a stay-at-home mom does have its benefits, the biggest of which is that I get to mold and shape and discover more about these two little beings of mine every day.  

But I've never really been one to focus much on the positive.  And right now I really want to quit this job.  I'm exhausted all the time, I've completely lost touch with who I am and what I enjoy.  When I do have alone time, I have no idea what to do with myself so I just fill the hours with errands, emails, and naps.  I have lost my sense of self.  I have lost my passion.  Every day just runs into the next.  More giving of myself until there is nothing left.  I feel like an empty shell of a person.  If I have to give one more thing to one more person I'm going to scream!

My friends will all tell you that I am a fabulous mom - creative and caring and patient.  And, yes, all of that is true.  But it's taking everything I have to be that way.  When do I get something for me?

I should be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  My kids are 6 and 3.  One is in Kindergarten and the other in preschool 2-3 mornings a week.  I actually have alone time during the day for the first time in six years.  It should start to feel easier, shouldn't it?  Aren't I supposed to start feeling more refreshed?  Instead, I feel smothered; like someone's holding a pillow over my head and it's hard to breathe.  

As any good mom would tell you, I would do anything for my children and raising them has been the best thing I have ever done.  They have helped me to grow in so many ways.  I feel incredible guilt for even uttering these feelings of despair.  

But that's what I am - desperate.  I am desperate to pry that pillow off of my face.  Desperate to take a breath.  Desperate to be free.  But I have no idea how to get there.  So, for now, I'm just going to focus on getting out of bed.  

Courage #2

This past weekend, we attended our first elementary school dance together as a family.  My daughter, who is in Kindergarten, informed me about this dance weeks before the flyers came home.  "It's going to be a decade dance, Mama!  You have to dress like you're from a decade in history.  I want to dress like the 1920's!  I want to be a flapper girl!"  She's six.  How does she even know about flappers?  But her enthusiasm was contagious and one weekend we found ourselves in every department of Target searching for the perfect accessories.  

My goal was to look authentic while spending as little money as possible - this was a two-hour school dance, after all.  For my daughter, we found two purple sequined skirts on the clearance rack.  We used one for her top, gluing on purple ribbon for straps, and one for the bottom.  We added black tights and dress shoes, a purple boa, some gold beads tied in a knot, and a black feathered headband.  Her purse was a clutch.  She was in heaven!  The boys were easy. My 3-year-old wore a white dress shirt with a built in vest and bow tie, jeans, and a baby blue fedora.  My husband wore a shirt and tie along with a fedora as well.  They were the cutest gangsters I've ever seen.  

And then there was me.  I went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth about what to wear.  Trying on outfits for a costume party is akin to shopping for swimsuits.  I finally decided to simply focus on the accessories.  So I wore a black knit dress with black leggings and flats and jazzed it up with a hot pink feathered fascinator and wildly fun boa.  I was feeling good.  That is, until I got there.

I looked around and I realized that we were the only parents in the room in costume.  

Let me say that again.

WE WERE THE ONLY PARENTS IN THE ROOM IN COSTUME!  

Unbelievable.  

When you're someone who doesn't feel comfortable in their own skin, it's hard to get dressed up and parade yourself in front of a group of people you don't know.  It's very hard.  But when you are the only one dressed up in the entire gymnasium?  It's brutal.  I felt like I was at my own 8th grade dance - all gawky and shy - and wanted to hide under the table.  

But then, yet again, I saw my daughter.  

She was glowing in her purple sequins and had a smile a mile wide.  I wanted to bottle that girl up and drink her down so that I could feel a tiny bit of what she was feeling - free, uninhibited, joy.  She wasn't worried about her costume, or her body, or her lack of anything.  She was just having fun without a care in the world.  

I scanned the gym and realized that not only were the parents in their everyday clothes, they were all sitting on chairs lining the perimeter of the room.  What?  This is an elementary school dance, not a funeral.  Get up, damn it!  Go dance with your kids.

And so I did.  Well, first I asked my daughter if she wanted to me to dance with her and then I did.  And we danced the night away - my fabulous 1920's family and me.  We laughed and jumped and whooped and hollered until the kids were so tired they were begging to go home.  

That, my friends, took some courage.  Not the kind of courage required to don a bathing suit in the middle of winter, but courage nonetheless. 

 And you know what?  It felt fabulous!

The More They Whine, The Hungrier I Get

I love my kids - I really do.  They are such sweet little things who have helped me grow into the woman - and mother -  I am today.  They make me smile, laugh out loud, slow down, wonder and delight in the little things.  But they also make me eat. 

Let me explain.

The other day we took a family trip to the mall and, after shopping, my husband and I decided that it was time for us to pick the luncheon restaurant for a change.  No Chick Fil A.  No McDonalds.  No food court.  We wanted a sit-down meal with an actual server and cloth napkins.  Is that too much too ask?  So we ventured into PF Changs with our 6- and 3-year-old.  

Let's just say it was not the most relaxing lunch I've ever had.   The service was incredibly slow that day and it took all we had to keep the kids entertained.  Once the appetizers arrived, my daughter nibbled on one tiny piece of iceberg lettuce from the lettuce wraps (that she requested by the way) while my son attempted to eat one lonely grain of brown rice with a single chopstick - all the while whining that they were hungry.  "When are we going to the food court?"  

By the time our Mu Shu Pork arrived at the table, the kids were done.  Toast.  Ready to get the heck out of there.  As we're inhaling our food, my husband looks at me, a piece of Chinese cabbage dangling from his mouth, and says, "The more they whine, the hungrier I get."  

Hysterical as it was, he is so right.

My kids don't make me eat - no one can do that.  But eating is my coping mechanism.  And when things get too hairy, too overwhelming, too hard, that's what I do.  I eat to calm the anxiety.  I eat to quell the frustration.  I eat to make it all go away.  So when the kids are at an all time high with their whining or arguing or demands, I find myself ducking into that pantry closet for a little chocolate vacation.  And it is a vacation - for a minute.  But once that binge is over, reality is right there waiting for me.  

It's no different than any other addiction, really.  Of course, this means I need to replace this one habit with another, healthier one...  Hmm, that's a lot harder than it sounds.  I'll get back to you once I have an idea.  For now, I'm going to go deal with the fact that admitting this makes me want to go and eat.  I guess it's not just the whining that makes me hungry. 
 
 

Orange Fingers

Certain foods are triggers.  We all have them.  Sweet, salty, crunchy, gooey - whatever the trigger - the result is still the same.  Overeating.  Call it binging, perhaps.  Me, I have MANY triggers.  Pretty much any food that I try not to have in the house is a trigger for me.  Just the fact that I know I shouldn't have it sends the food rebel in me on high alert.  Sometimes I get this idea in my head that I really should be able to buy a trigger food, store it in the pantry, and munch on it in moderate portions.  Because isn't that the goal?  To eat a sensible diet with the occasional treat?  Then reality sets in. 

My latest purchase was a bag of Cheez Doodles.  I saw them on BOGO at the grocery store and bought them on a whim.  Wow, I haven't had these in ages.  Let's buy a bag and enjoy them throughout the week.  Surely, I can control myself.   Fast forward two days later.  I'm sitting at my computer and I look down at my fingers as they swiftly tap the keyboard.  Orange.  Bright, neon orange that only comes from one source - processed powdered cheese.  Yeah, that cheese tapped into some anger at myself for mindlessly eating too many Cheez Doodles.  Sure, I felt a huge amount of frustration that I couldn't just stop at one serving.  Of course, I felt some guilt that there weren't many left in the bag for the kids' after-school snack.  But worst of all, that orange cheese stuck in the crevices of my fingernails sent me back - way back - to when I first started feeling bad about myself and my eating.  

I'm not going to go into all the details - because, let's face it, that's like 43 more posts.  So I'll just summarize by saying that I was taught at an early age that being overweight was a death sentence and that I was not in charge of my own hunger and fullness.  Worst of all, I was taught that no boy is ever going to like me if I'm overweight.  God, it hurts just to type that...

So where did those orange fingers send me?  To one memory of a thousand like it.  

I'm 12, maybe 13, sitting inside a crappy rented beach house while the rest of my family is outside enjoying the sun and sand.  I spent a lot of time inside  - just wishing that I liked myself enough to join the world.  I remember hiding behind the brown plaid curtain in the bedroom window, my cheese-stained fingers moving between the open bag of Cheez Doodles and my mouth, secretly looking at a boy that I thought was the most wonderful thing on Earth.  A boy who was not only drop-dead gorgeous, but was sweet and kind.  A boy who, moments earlier, had come by to see if I would play volleyball with him and his friends.  A boy who was always trying to include me.  But I couldn't - I just couldn't.  You see, it was much easier to hide away with my neon orange friend than to argue against my own thoughts of self worth.  

That memory makes me cringe.  I hurt not only for the girl who hid behind those curtains, but for all the girls out there who still do.  I hurt for my daughter who I desperately want to be confident of herself no matter what she looks like.  Will I be able to instill that confidence in her even if I don't have it myself?  

Screw the `Cheez Doodles!  This isn't about Cheez Doodles or serving sizes or overeating or food, really.  This is about loving yourself no matter what - something I wasn't really taught as a kid.  But I'm starting now.  Because it's never too late to show yourself - or your daughter - that you matter.  That you are worthy.  That you are deserving of all the love and all the respect and all the joy the world has to offer.

Courage

It takes courage to be overweight.  You wouldn't think so, but it does.  It takes courage to put on your size XL yoga pants and go to the gym.  It takes courage to get dolled up and go barhopping downtown.  And it certainly takes courage to wear a bathing suit.  And that's the kind of courage I had to muster up today.

My 6-year-old daughter had a birthday party to attend tonight for one of her kindergarten classmates.  She was so looking forward to it because it was a swim party - in the middle of January.  Neat idea, huh?  It didn't hit me until about an hour before the party:

Am I supposed to bring a swimsuit for myself?  Are the parents going to be swimming?  Oh God, what do I do?  It's the middle of winter.  My toes are unpolished, my legs untanned, and my bikini area - well, let's just say it certainly isn't ready for a bikini!  

During my state of panic, I thought of all the possible ways I could get out of this; the best being to send my husband instead.  Guys don't care about their ghost-white legs or untrimmed, ahem, cuticles.  But then I took a breath.  And I thought of you, dear reader, and what a great post this would make - having the courage to brave a bathing suit in spite of my imperfections.

So I packed my Lands End SwimMini and towel in my bag and told myself to suck it up.  I told myself that I could do this.  I would hold my head high as I marched from the locker room to the safety of the deep end.

Then, the heavens opened and angelic music played.  It turns out none of the other moms were planning on swimming.  So we all just sat there by the edge of the pool dressed in our jeans and fleece vests while we watched our little swimmers having the time of their lives.

Want to know the kicker?

I wanted to be in that pool having fun with my little girl.  I really did.  We looked ridiculous sitting there on the sidelines.  It was 85 degrees and 185% humidity inside that indoor pool area.  My jeans were sticking to my legs.  But we all felt the same - no way am I getting in that pool in front of all these people.  Thin or heavy, tall or short, outgoing or shy, we all felt the same.  And isn't that sad?

I wish I could tell you that I was different; that I eventually got in the pool.  I can't.  I went with the flow, not wanting to stand out.  But I am proud of myself just for packing my swimsuit nevertheless.  Baby steps.

And maybe, just maybe, someday in the near future, I can be the mom who has the courage to be the only mom in the pool.   The mom who can focus on all that's wonderful about her.  The mom that all those other moms probably wished they could be too.