Being Vulnerable

Well I just spent the last 3 days at one of TurningLeaf’s amazing seminars. I love these seminars. I am always so much more at peace after them. I am sure my husband and kids appreciate them too. It seems after spending 3 days dealing with fears, throwing out old non-working beliefs, and learning to Value me, I am a happier, more patient, less stressed person to be around!! This past weekend I got a different view of vulnerability. What comes to mind when you here that word? For me it was crying and the willingness to be weak in front of someone. If you would have asked me 3 days ago if I was a vulnerable person I would have said yes, and to some extent that would have been true. But this weekend I found out first of all I have a skewed definition of vulnerable and I am not as vulnerable as I thought.
I believe now that vulnerability is a sign of strength. It is a willingness to be exactly who you are which includes your weakness and your strengths. The ability to let people see you honestly. Not you pretending to be strong or you beating yourself up. Just simply who you are in that moment. And when you accept who you are in that moment, that is what makes your vulnerability so true and so powerful.
I realized this weekend that I keep my heart very guarded and I only let it out when I think no one will reject it. But what I realized was that I was dependant on others acceptance of me. My willingness to be open was contingent upon what people would think of me when I was open. I realized I no longer want to be dependent on an outside source for my ability to be exactly who I am at any given time, whether it involves laughing or crying. My guarded heart not only keeps me separated from those I love but it restricts my growth as a person.

Thanks for the complement, I think?!

Just the other day Michael and I were talking about our “daughter” and how she is very “reactive” in the heat of the situation. I was telling him how she was praying the other night about working on her attitude. I said, “It is so cute. She really doesn’t want to react with a ball of fury, she is just a lot like a mom; emotionally reactive!” He agreed and also pointed out how, that it is amazing how much they react to my energy if I am frustrated. Being the mature parent I am my response was “well, they start with the whining and complaining FIRST! And I react to that!” He laughed. I said, “Seriously, you don’t have to listen to it all day like I do. It gets old.” Looking at me with sweet empathetic eyes, he responded, “I know sometimes it gets rough. And don’t feel bad, your personality is good for our kids.” He paused just long enough for me to get a proud grin and my face and feel so appreciative of the complement, and then followed it up with….”Our kids have to learn how to deal with people’s attitude before they go out into the world on their own.” “Yeah! Ha ha, so funny.” I retorted with an eye roll. It was funny. And that is what I do love about my husband. He doesn’t take my faults and lecture me, or criticize me. He knows I am working on not being reactive. So when he sees me getting overwhelmed and exploding or guilt loading myself for my “explosions” he finds a way to help me laugh at my growth process. So thanks babe, I think? haha

Father's Day

Well I know that Father’s Day has come and gone, but I still want to write what I intended on writing that day, only time just did not permit. One more week and summer ball is done and life should slow down a bit. Whew! I am ready for that.

Anyway on Father’s Day I thought about my Dad and what he has been to me through out my life. He is an amazing man, and one whom I look up to. When I think of my dad I think of someone who dares to do the impossible. If he was interested he went for it. He hitchhiked from here to California in his younger days. Now naturally I don’t intend on hitch hiking anytime soon, but it was his spirit of adventure that I admire. Later on after he had two kids, he decided he wanted to learn how to fly an airplane. Now I have many childhood memories of climbing into my Dad’s airplane and flying to many different destinations. I can still here the sound of his voice talking to the flight control center over the head set. “Comanche N5436 Papa, just headed into Chicago….” And then later when I was in high school he decided he wanted to be a farmer. He brought home a baby calf one day, in the “cab” of my truck because it was to “afraid” to ride in the back. He initially tried to send me for some paper towel and have me clean up what the calf had “deposited” down the side of the passenger door, but I was not about to be that compliant of a daughter. Anyway, he brought this calf home before we even had the fence done. My dad is a dive in and fix things along the way kind of guy. He definitely doesn’t stick to the “traditional” way of accomplishing things. But that is exactly why his business is still thriving today. He knew in order to make it through this tough economy and be a successful business owner in these ever evolving times he was going to have to think outside of the box, and believe in the hard to believe. And that is exactly what my Dad does. I admire that in my Dad and the little girl in me wants to be just like him when I “grow up.”

What's in my orange juice?"

Oh my gosh. I have been so busy with life I just haven’t been able to keep up with this blog. By the time I climb into bed at midnight I just don’t seem to have any energy left to write about my crazy life. Real quick before I go to bed tonight I just thought I would say my 11 year old had his 1st drink tonight. Yeah! We were at a wedding and they had a “screwdriver mix” in one of those big orange coolers. Ya know, the kind kids usually get their lemonade out of at a picnic. Fortunately he didn’t drink too much before my brother in-law noticed he had orange juice in his cup. Knowing that there wasn’t any orange juice being served, so it had to be the mixed “drink” he informed Josh that it was an alcoholic beverage. Josh said it just tasted like orange juice to him and suggested that they put a “no kids allowed” sign on that cooler to avoid this type of confusion. So the joke for the night was “hey how is Josh feeling.” What can I say we start them young. Haha.

Ponder This

So often we only pay attention to ourselves when there is a crisis. We don’t take our vitamins until we get sick. We don’t exercise until a doctor says we must. And we don’t seek emotional help until the only answer in sight is drugs. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if at the first warning signs we sought help, just maybe we could turn things around before crisis protocol was necessary. It’s like Stephen Covey says, “have you ever been too busy driving to stop and get gas”. So often that is the case for many of us, especially our emotional health. Let’s not continue to wait until we are so depressed or so angry that we don’t even know HOW to get help, or we think our only alternative is drugs.

Does anything slow this kid down

Today I took Bo to the Doc to get his foot x-rayed. He fell over on a chair the other day and got a bruise but didn’t start limping until today. By noon he was crawling everywhere. He even attempted to go outside but just ended up crawling through the garage. So I took him in. I thought it might be a calmer visit than our usual doctor visits seeing that he couldn’t walk. Well, the calmness only lasted so long. He finally got tired of sitting reading magazines and squirmed out of my arms to crawl on the floor and touch everything at that level. Eeeeewww. So there I was trying to get him to stay in my lap. I think I might like it better when he is destroying the paper on the bed and spinning on the Dr. stool. At least then he isn’t mopping up the doctor’s floor with his shirt. After the x-ray we found out everything was fine. He prescribed some Advil for the swelling and Bo was his regular “extra” active self by the time of Josh’s baseball game. Yeah!

The bugs are back

Yeah, I feel like mom of the year. My 6 year old was outside this evening without his shirt. Well, I didn’t think anything of it he is a boy. And Bo, my three year old was outside in the pool in the nude yesterday, so really I figured he was more covered than that so it’s all good. We do teach our kids modesty at some point in time and eventually they quite running around showing their moon to the world, but are boys ever gonna be really modest? No, not really. Although maybe I was the only girl who was raised with a dad who brushed his teeth in his underwear with the door open, or said Hey, pull my finger. Anyway, modesty is not really what I was going to talk about. I feel bad because when Timmy came in he look like he had been a mosquito, all you can eat buffet. I counted 12 bites on his back. Poor little guy, he was so itchy I smeared him in cortisone and put him to bed. I never even thought about the bugs, I was in my cool air-conditioned house looking through the window at the kids all playing. School is out and they were playing without fighting, it was so great. Oh well, I will be ready to dowse them all with a can of Off next time.

"On guard"

Here is a story I have been forgetting to tell…. I bought some flowers in a pot for the school secretary. During the school year my son ended up sick in the office one day and just about threw up on her. So I thought I would get her some flowers for taking care of him until I could get there. Well, I was walking back in the kitchen and I saw Michael making a strange face and he said “oops.” I hadn’t quit caught on yet to what was going on. I finally caught his glance toward the table where the flowers were setting and as I looked down I realized half of the flower heads were chopped off. As I glanced around I saw they were scattered all over the floor. And there stood my husband with my kid’s sword in his hand. While he was practicing his sword fighting he totally mutilated my plant. He of course did it by accident. When I was telling this story to a friend of mine she asked, “was he showing off for the kids?” My reply was “Nope, the kids were in bed.” It was so funny; he was just simply being the oversized kid he is. The flowers were not the first items to be damaged. Over the years of our marriage I believe Michael holds the record for items broken due to rough housing or throwing balls.

Fifth grade send off

Today I found myself watching my fifth grader walk down the hall of the elementary school. All the 1st thru 4th graders lined the halls giving them one final salute good by. They were giving each of them high fives on their way out the door where they all met at the flag pole and said the pledge, the school pledge, and sang the Start Spangle banner as they took the flag down. If you would have told me about this tradition at the beginning of the year I would have thought it was cute, I didn’t realize the wave of emotion I was going to feel. I can still see his head coming through the crowd as he came down the hall. And it was so adorable when he spotted his little brother and gave him the sweetest little hug. And as they sang out on the sidewalk I just kept looking at him thinking it is so hard to believe that my baby is about to step into the next phase of his life. It’s times like these I cherish those sleepless nights feeding my newborn, or sleeping with him when he had a bad dream. All the things he did as a toddler such as stick his PBJ in the VCR, or the remote control in a cup of water just seem cute and I have to chuckle when I think of it. I remember when I had Josh and people told me to cherish the younger years they go by so fast, I thought, “yeah right, I haven’t slept through the night in weeks and Saturdays look like every other day of the week now.” But they were right, time has flown by. I am so proud of him and look forward to the journey that lies ahead. And maybe I will quit trying to rush Bo through toddlerhood. haha

Guilt Free FUN.

Guilt free fun. Hmmmm. As moms sometimes we forget how to do that. There are so many times I am envious of the man’s compartmental brain. I went to a seminar years ago and they were talking about he difference between a man’s brain and a woman’s brain. When demonstrating the man’s thought processing they pulled out this wooden box about one foot wide, one foot tall, and 3 in. deep. This box was then divided into equally spaced compartments, and each compartment had a label under it. The work compartment, the play compartment. The sports, yard work, and dad compartment. I am sure you get the idea. Well then they took a marble and said it represented the man's brain. And they would place the marble in the compartment that the man was using at that moment. Then when describing the woman’s thought processing they pulled out a bowl and threw in random small objects like game pieces, dice, etc to represent our daily thoughts and responsibilities such as kids, housework, wife, school activities, work etc. Then they used a marble to represent the woman’s brain and threw it into the bowl and just shook the bowl all around and around watching the marble bump into each item over and over. I just thought that was such a good image of how different our brains work. It is so true. Each has it’s own strength. The man can let things go and a focus all his energy on one thing, and the women, well lets face it the woman can multitask circles around a man. But when it comes to letting go and taking some me time, how many of us do it WITHOUT thinking about what we “should” be doing. Whether it be helping our husband with the kids or doing the laundry or cleaning some area of the house, cause there is one thing I have learned in this whole MOM occupation, “It is never all done, there will always be something to clean or finish.” So as you are planning your week don’t forget to pencil in some guilt free fun just for YOU!

Take me out to the ball game

T-Ball

Well I gotta say if you have ever coached T-ball I am sure you can put that on your resume somewhere. I can’t say that I HAVE coached T-ball; I am just helping Amy coach and tonight was our first game. Ten little hats scattered across the dirt of the infield. A couple are ready with their serious little game face on. While another few are seeing what pretty designs they can make in the dirt with their glove. One of the boys playing second is chatting with the base runner from the other team. And then there is the batter…Swing… whoops, knocked down the T, but the ball has yet to leave home plate. Swing…the kid swung so hard the bat came all the way around and hit him in the head, but the ball was still balanced there on the T. Swing…that bat swings around swinging the kid around now passing over top of the T for the 2nd time in one swing, and you guessed it, the ball is still sitting on the T. Finally, Swing and Crack the ball hits the infield, it is through the first kid and through the second kid, and the 3rd kid runs to grab it before it hits the grass. He picks it up and fires it over the 1st baseman’s head, and off 2 more kids go to chase it down again. While all this is happening one kid runs from 2nd to home, the little girl on 3rd walks to home looking at her parents who are yelling, “run, run,” like “why, no one is chasing me, they are all chasing that ball over there.” And the kid on first is still standing there chatting with the kid who just batted. Yup, craziness. Although I have to say my personal favorites are when my daughter played T-ball and she would hug all her friends on the opposite team when she arrived at there base, that and she sucked her thumb at the time so in between kids batting she would be standing there just sucking her thumb. Anyway, it takes talent to coral all these little munchkins and teach them to play ball and Amy sure does a great job at it. And to anyone else who has ever coached T-ball. Good job, you deserved a coach of the year award just for doing it. And as crazy it is the kids are so adorable!

Fly ball to right field!!!??!!!

“Yes! I’m in right field with a fly ball headed my way. I was going to make a great catch.”

Keep in mind moments before this I was feeling nervous about messing up. I am still pretty rusty. Granted I have never been a star player, but plying on a church league in my early twenties I could hold my own. But not anymore. Now I played like a mom who has been home with her kids for years! But I threw my nerves aside thinking of my latest mantra- Make Mistakes! Through my seminar experiences I realized I am afraid of screwing up and looking stupid or just plain letting people down. I have a fear of failure, as many of us do, so at times I hold back. However, while playing this game I said to myself, “Jamie, just have fun. You love this game, just enjoy playing it. And if you mess up, good for you. You need to learn to be ok with that. And the only way to learn, is to practice. Moments after I gave myself this speech comes that fly ball. I judged it just right, and watched it fall into my glove. And then I watched it roll right out until it hit me in the forehead. Seriously, I realize I want to be able to make mistakes, but did we have to conquer being fine with humiliation in the same game. I was so embarrassed. Looking at it now though it is kinda funny. And I figure there isn’t a highlight video for the “ok good job plays” it is either the super star moments or the blooper moments that go down in history. So if I can’t be the “star” I might as well make the blooper reel, right?!

The dog show.

“Please don’t run away and embarrass me. I really don’t want a reason to write an entertaining blog. I will gladly sacrifice the funny blog material, just please don’t pull your head out of your collar” I found myself uttering these words to the 75lb lab I had on a leash at the 3rd grade dog show. The dog show I never intended on going to, but my daughter ask everyone she knew with a dog and came up with nothing. I told her I was bummed for her but there was nothing I could do. I myself had a meeting the day of the show. However, the night before the show I decided to skip my last MOPS meeting (which included a meal and childcare), and took my “moms” dog to the school. Emphasis on “MOM’S” dog. Yeah the dog who “technically” lives next door yet manages to spend most of her time eating the grilled cheese out of my kid’s hand, sneaking hot dogs off the picnic table during our bon-fires, or simply sneaking into my house uninvited. But I felt bad that Kate was going to miss, oh in her words “the only dog show she will probably ever be in.” Be sure to add some drama and a tear down the cheek for affect.

So the “mom” part of my heart was able to over power the “I don’t want to take a dog to the elementary school. A dog I wasn’t sure would listen.” The thought of it gave me nightmare flash backs of me at middle school age all of 105 lbs. walking my 90lb lab through the apartments we lived in. Only it was more like him dragging me all over the complex. So there I was at the show with my moms dog getting pretty hyper. She was barking, whining and pulling on her collar. For a moment I thought I was just going to take her to the van and just leave. My daughter was begging me to stay. So I did and as I stepped into the lawn toward the show my foot squished on a pile of dog poo. She was drooling shoelaces of slime out of her mouth which she kept slinging all over my pants. And when it was our turn to go up in front of all the 3rd graders the dog squatted in front of me, up hill in front of me and began to pee. Jumping out of the way of the downward stream I just rolled my eyes thinking, “yes, this what I skipped my childless luncheon for. Well, no, what I skipped my lunch for and what really made it all worth it was the grin on Kate’s face and the sparkle in her eyes when she was able to be in the dog show. Ya know, “probably the only dog show she will ever be in.”