The Mom of a Kindergartener

My sweet Mallory, my first born child, had her first day of Kindergarten last week. There were tears shed, by me, not her.

She happily walked down the street with her best friend, also in Kindergarten but in a different class.

She waited in line smiling and talking with her daddy and sister.

She walked away waving goodbye. And that was that. She was gone and I truly felt that this was the real first step in letting go.

Now here we are a week into sending her off and she absolutely loves it and I can say with most certainty that I love being the mom of a Kindergartener!

 I love meeting the other parents and knowing that we are all in this together. We will likely watch all our children grow up together as they continue their school years.

I love the newness and the excitement and knowing that this is the start of something wonderful for her.

I love knowing that this is just the beginning and we still have so many years ahead of us living together as a family.  I may not be young *Ahem* but our family is young.

 I really am so excited for her. She's a lot like me in that she loves school. I remember being in kindergarten and I remember how excited I was to go to school.

There's something about knowing that your child will likely remember these moments that takes this parenting thing to a whole other level.

She will remember.

I will remember.

Together we will both remember these days and it really just doesn't get better than that!

So here's to all the mamas sending their children off to Kindergarten for the first time! We really are all in this together! 

Are you the mom of a kindergartener? I'd love to see your pictures or perhaps you've shared your thoughts on you blog. Please link in comments below. 

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What We Don't Say....

Yesterday I was blown away inspired by this post Just Be Kind and Brave from Glennon of momastery.com.

It was one of those moments where I felt overwhelmed with the beautiful wisdom I had just absorbed. I  shared it on Facebook. I pinned it on Pinterest. I wanted to shout out Yes! Yes! Yes! And tell everyone I know to read it and save it and print it and read it to your kids, and share it, and read it again and again and again!

I think the reason it resonated with me so much was because I too had "An Adam" in my childhood. I'm pretty sure most of us can remember a child that was not liked, picked on, sad, didn't have the greatest personal hygiene.  Her name was Diana and all through grade school I can remember how she was the outcast and teased relentlessly. Just as in Glennon's post I too didn't participate in the teasing but I never did anything to stop it.

I remember a very specific moment when the teacher asked us to get in line. Diana went to line up and one by one kids were moving to the back of the line to avoid standing next to her. I remember the look on her face, I remember it like it was yesterday. She was just standing there looking at each child as they were all avoiding standing next to her. She didn't look mad just defeated and heartbroken. She didn't cry. Sadly, this type of behavior went on all the time.  We were in 6th grade and she couldn't have been older than 11 years old.

When I look back on this as an adult and try to wrap my brain around the cruelty this little girl suffered I am filled with regret. This was a little girl who had the right to feel safe and secure everyday at school just like I did. She should have been supported and encouraged and above all treated with kindness. I never remember anyone standing up for her including myself. I do remember being nice to her one on one but when it came to actually telling the "mean" kids to stop humiliating her that's where I stopped short.

Many people have a Diana in their past. We all can relate. I want my children to know this story and how over 25 years later I can still remember little Diana and how I never defended her, how no one was there for her and how we collectively failed her.  If we want bullying to end, if we want compassion to prevail these are the types of conversations we need to be having with our children.

We need to be sharing our stories so as to not repeat our mistakes and to pass on the lessons learned. In my experience the lesson is this...

It's something I not only what to teach my children but words I want to live by as well. It takes a lot of courage to speak out against bullying, to go against the crowd. Stepping in and saying something would have mattered for Diana. Hopefully by remembering all the "Diana's" out there we can have the strength to speak up against the injustices that exist and perhaps in the process we may just change the course of someone's life!

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The Last Cartwheel- Growing old with grace...

Do you remember the last time you did a cart wheel?

Do you remember the last time you were pushed on a swing?

Do you remember the last time you fed your now grown up baby a bottle?

 I'd like to share this article I wrote about growing old and really approaching those everyday moments with your children as if they were the very last time you will do them. 

As I get older it's easier for me to do, even though it often means replacing the negative dialogue in my head. When my 5 month baby refuses to sleep and I'm walking him around the house, I'm exhausted and cranky but it helps to stop and think to embrace the moment as if it were the very last rock, the very last swaddle, the very last lullaby. 

This was written a couple of years ago but every so often I go back and read it and it serves as a great reminder to not only savor these moments with my children but to strive to grow old with grace and embrace each wrinkle in all their glory! 

The Last Cart Wheel 

I’m getting old. No, really for the first time in my life I’m truly starting to feel like I’m getting old. In the past I’ve always balked at the idea that I’m getting older. When friends would tell stories from x amount of years ago and then follow it up with statements like “Gosh we’re getting old” I simply didn’t subscribe to that way of thinking. I just never felt that way. I don’t think I was in denial- I just didn’t feel it. 

That is until recently. 

I see it on my face in the mirror and pictures of me. I see the infinite amount of wrinkles that seem to develop on a daily basis and don’t even get me started on my grey hairs! 

I feel it in my body and my bones and muscles- and it’s not just an “I need to start working out feeling”…it’s beginning I tell ya- if “old” were some sort of disease those first symptoms have reared their ugly heads and planted seeds in my 37 year old body. 

I live it in my day to day life: at times when I find myself hesitating to offer up my age, when the 22 year old hair stylist calls me mam, when I’m by far the oldest mom in the playgroup, when I think the music at a hip restaurant is way too loud. 

I am indeed getting old and it’s no longer this little realization dangling in front of me- it’s right here and we have finally met. Really, I’m learning to be okay with it. I think when you actually accept that you are getting old there lies within you a world of wisdom that by golly can only come with age. There’s a certain appreciation that unfolds as we start to really contemplate our mortality. I’d like to think that as a result we live larger, we surround ourselves with good people, and we don’t sweat the small stuff. We know how fragile humanity is and we don’t know when it will be our time. When you’re younger you simply don’t think about those things. 

I remember those innocent care-free childhood days. Laughing until your belly hurt, waiting for the ice cream man, playing Ghost in the Graveyard, sharing secrets at sleepovers, doing cartwheels in the front yard… I seriously don’t remember the last time I did a cartwheel. I used to love doing them but I can not and will not ever remember my very last one. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I knew it would be my last cartwheel. Why can’t we get some sort of warning sign, a little voice that says “psst…hey you…this is it, better really savor it because May 10, 1984 is the very last time you will ever do a cartwheel!” 

There is no little voice, no warning sign given but there is the knowledge of knowing, accepting, and embracing the inevitable. And we can choose to move forward with love and grace and be our own little voice. So I may not remember the exact date of the last time I rock my daughters to sleep or read them a bedtime story but I will certainly remember that I cherished those moments as if they were my last, each and every time! And if getting old allows me to make those revelations than it’s a journey I’ll gladly take! 

Do you have any "getting old" revelations, words of wisdom you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them in the comments.

Being in the Moment as a Parent

Having 3 young kids I often get unsolicited advice/opinions from people I know as well as complete strangers. My oldest is 4 years old so I'm fairly used to this and although it can be annoying at times I also know that most people have good intentions and take it all with a grain of salt.

By and large the most common advice I get from folks who have older children or adult children usually goes something like this: "Savor every moment.", "It goes by so fast.", "The days are long but the years are short." I seriously hear this from kind older ladies at Target at least once every couple of weeks!

Funny thing is I know how fleeting these days are and I know that they will be gone before we know it! I think this is why I take so many pictures, I'm trying so hard to capture all the details of our lives so when the day comes that I can't remember those details there they will be, waiting for me to pour through the albums.

Although I know how important it is to "savor the moments" with my children there are definite days where I struggle with this. Probably more often than not if I'm being honest. When the baby is screaming, my toddler spilled cereal all over the floor and the dog peed on the new carpet in the living room it's hard to remember and believe that I will miss these days. When I'm going through the bedtime routine with the kids it's often hard to think about anything other than the silence, cup of tea (or glass of wine- depending on the day) and quiet uninterrupted conversations with my husband that will be had 'If I could just get them to bed".

This past weekend we were at a wedding and a distant family member came up to compliment me on our "beautiful family".  She then said the usual "It goes by so fast" comments but then also added her kids are out of the house and all grown up and "The silence is deafening!" She said it with such conviction and I'm not quite sure why it struck me so much but it really got me thinking about being better at REALLY being in the moment with my kids. I like to think of it as a goal or maybe a journey...something to always work on and continue to get better at.

How do you stay in the moment with your kids? Any advice you'd want to share?  I'd love for you to share in the comments!

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Parent Like It's 1984: Are We Over Involved As Parents Today?

I have such fond memories of playing outside when I was a child. None of those memories included scheduled play dates, $1000 swing sets, perfectly landscaped fenced in yards, fancy sprinklers, adorable play cottages, and parents that hovered over us and intervened when the slightest tiff takes place. My children currently have or will have most of these things mentioned. (We are currently in the market for the $1000 swing set). My children are only 3 and 2 so the jury is still out on hovering and intervening too much but I do wonder "Will I be that parent?", and more importantly how do I avoid being too involved, giving them their space yet ensuring they are safe?

When I was growing up we lived next to a large field that was used for all the neighborhood kids to play running bases, capture the flag, kick ball, and Ghost in the Graveyard. On the other side of the field was Mr. Davis’s house. Mr. Davis was a cranky old man who lived alone and hated children. While we spent the day playing in the field, Mr. Davis spent the day yelling at us every time a ball would hit his house for fear it would break a window. We never even came close to breaking his windows. Looking back the yelling never really deterred us from playing there. We spent many an hour planning our defense against mean old Mr. Davis...."This time we were actually going to tell him It's not his lot...." All the while our parents never really intervened. Can you imagine those shenanigans flying today? When we weren’t playing in the field we often were swinging on a old tire that was attached to an even older tree to make a swing, digging in the puddles and dirt to make “mud pies”, running through the rusty old sprinkler, and riding our big wheels. Every kid in the neighborhood had a big wheel and the entire block was our driveway. Big Wheels were our first ever taste of freedom. We didn't need five different choices of riding vehicles. We had the freedom to roam the street as long as we stayed on our block. Parents called us in by yelling for us out the door. Am I advocating we go back to the days of no helmets or seat belts, and rusty metal swing sets? Of course not! Also, there’s the “The world is not as safe factor”, where kids shouldn’t be roaming free like we used to anyway. I do however think a little of that care free spontaneity is lost on children today. Dealing with Mr. Davis on our own built character and we bonded as neighborhood kids. As I think about what "playing outside" will be like for my daughters I know they'll have acess to many cool places, toys and experiences that I never had. However I also know they'll probably never have the empty lots, the freedom of roaming the block, and the overall simpleness of childhood that existed back then. A part of me wishes they could know the feeling when 'conquering' Mr.Davis with a big wheel and some Bubblicious chewing gum was all a kid needed for the perfect day!

Do you worry about raising kids in a generation where we are over involved as parents?

How do you strike the balance of safety and freedom when it comes to your kids?