Thank you for some friends

I must confess that I am a person who is incredibly skeptical when someone says, “you have to meet so-and-so. You two would make great friends.” I try to stay engaged, but I am internally shutting down, wanting to get up, leave and never continue the conversation. Thankfully, my daughters have never done this to me (yet), but they have brought a few stellar people into my life. Today’s post is dedicated to my daughters, to whom I now say, “thank you for some friends.”

Perhaps you wonder why I would resist someone wanting to help me make friends?

I think it’s mainly the introvert in me that immediately goes on alert. I have learned over the years what will fill my cup and those things that will drain me like a sieve. My introvert alert knows that meeting new people leads to the much-required making of small talk. While I know that I CAN do small talk, as I have had to do this professionally for the last 15 years, I also know that by making small talk my internal battery is slowly ~~dying~~ draining. A few times, I have pushed through this internal struggle, and I have been pleasantly surprised by the result.

What happened?

The first time was when my daughter wanted to have a playdate with her friend from preschool. We met up at a park, we moms watched our little girls play, and had great conversations throughout our time together. Soon after we became friends on social media, and have stayed friends since.

The second time, I was waiting for my turn at parent-teacher conferences. I began chit-chatting with another mom in my daughter’s class, and slowly realized that I thought she was pretty awesome. Over the next several weeks, we kept bumping into each other at school events and around the neighborhood. Soon we became friends on social media (noticing a trend?), and now we text and message regularly.

Did this happen again?

Yep, in my daughter’s Girl Scout Troop a few years ago. Girl Scout cookie season was approaching, and my daughter was DESPERATE to be a Girl Scout and sell those ~~addicting~~ beloved cookies. I reluctantly volunteered to be an assistant leader in the troop so kindergarten Daisies could be added. Little did I know, a pandemic would hit within two months, our troop would shift to virtual for several months, and I would later have to take over as the troop leader. Perhaps I was right to be reluctant to volunteer?

I did learn rather quickly, that this arrangement would allow some girls to join the troop, and that my daughter (and later my youngest too) to get to know some great kids. The addition of these new girls brought their mothers to the troop, and now they’re irreplaceable parts of my village. We help one another when life gets tough, we look out for each other’s children, and they now help me lead the Girl Scout troop.

Have I changed my mind?

I’m not so sure about that. I am still an introvert who needs to protect my energy, choose wisely which things I agree to do, and prioritize some time alone each week. I am still skeptical of the phrase “you have to meet so-and-so, you two would make great friends.” I love the people in my life, and I’m flattered they think enough to introduce me to others in their life, and I want to invest my time in these treasured friendships. So, I won’t say no to meeting someone new, but I may continue being careful to protect my time for the ones already near and dear to my heart.

Motherhood Confession… tooth fairy edition

I have a confession…

(Did you just start seeing Usher in your head? If yes, we can be friends)

I digress. I have a confession… tooth fairy edition.

I am the tooth fairy…

…in my house, I’ve been given this title. Perhaps this title was given to me by the assistant to the tooth fairy, also known as my husband. My children do not know this, but I’m going to blow my cover sooner than later. Want to know how I know? Because it’s almost happened already.
[Also, Why is this even a thing? Teeth falling out? A fairy creeping in your house? ]

So what happened was…

My oldest lost a tooth. It was during pandemic times (which it still kind of is, right?), which meant my brain was fried and my memory is shh…sugar…it. I helped my daughter leave out her note for the ~~bone collector~~ tooth fairy. I then proceeded to forget all about what comes next. I went to bed and I slept soundly(ish).
[Do parents ever sleep soundly? There is a constant risk of being woken up by womb gremlins, worrying over your children, and other such concerns.]

I awoke to a disappointed child…

The next morning I had a little girl confused and disappointed that the tooth fairy had not made her visit, taking a tooth, and replacing it with a gold Sacajawea dollar coin. I quickly made some excuse about why the fairy didn’t come, blaming an unclean room or some such. This led to a tidy room and a little girl ready to give this magical creature another chance.

The next morning wasn’t much better…

Sadly, the assistant to the tooth fairy is a complete slacker and routinely falls short. They failed at their one task. Ensuring the tooth was collected and a coin left in its place. As if one mistake wasn’t bad enough, a second is almost unforgivable. So what happened next? A certain female parent went and placed a coin in an obscure spot and found it miraculously. The dismayed child was pleased with the discovery of funds but displeased that their tooth was left behind.
[I am not entirely certain of the going rate for teeth. I’ve heard some fairies give big bills, some toys, and maybe some are giving Disney Trips. This fairy is too cheap. We have a roll of gold dollar coins as tooth money.]

What do we do with this forgotten tooth?

Leave it for the ~~bone collector~~ fairy to come by (again) to pick it up. I’ve heard the fairy tried to go to bed without making their final stop, but did manage to collect their forgotten tooth.
[I admittedly felt terrible about my forgetfulness, but I will fully own that I am an okayish mom.]

Did the tooth fairy learn anything?

Maybe? Maybe not? Did their spouse? You better believe it. They stayed on top of things and kept the fairy on task to ensure the job was done. Here’s hoping this continues. There are many more teeth to be lost, and another child left to lose teeth in our house.
[God help me. Why are there so many teeth to be exchanged for currency?!]

the wonder of motherhood

little eyes staring up

minds filled with wonder

their lips overflow with questions

their ears cannot hear “I don’t know”

mom has all the answers

until she doesn’t

the day comes when she knows nothing

the wonder of motherhood

one day you know it all

the next you know nothing

but isn’t that every day of motherhood?

coming out of the fog

My daughter is just about to turn nine months old, which means she will be out as long as she was in. As we hit this milestone I finally feel like I’m coming out of the proverbial new mom fog. If you’re in the midst of the fog you might know what I’m talking about. If your past it, I’m almost certain you know what I’m talking about. Whether we’re in it or past it, we all eventually come out of the fog.

As a mom, it is always an adjustment to embrace your new found identity. You had this baby that spent nine months growing inside of you, but now it is learning to live outside of you. You spent months adjusting your growing belly and now you must recalibrate and learn to provide for this little person all the time.

Not only are you learning caregiving skills, but you also have this new identity called motherhood to embrace. You’ve gone from being your own person, and now your some little person’s whole world. If you already have older children, you’re learning how to share yourself with all the little people vying for your attention. No matter how many children you have, it’s always an adjustment to accept the new you.

When you have a baby, they’re always worried about you having postpartum depression. No one talks about this fog you’re living in. With so many things changing in your body, your life, identity, etc. you spend your days with your mind spinning. I am here to share something with you that I’ve heard from almost every mom; adjusting to this new identity as a mother is a challenge for everyone. I’ve also heard from almost every mom that we do make it out of the fog and see our world clearly once more. The way we see our life and world may be different than before, but it is now filled with lots of love and joy.

yours in motherhood,

to the perfect parents

Dear Perfect Parent,

I have a few things I’d like to share with you today. I want to commend your efforts at being the perfect parent, because it’s not somethings we all aspire to be in life. You believe in the depths of your being that you are doing everything exactly right, and that you have a thing or two you can teach the rest of us.

You are decidedly the best example about breastfeeding or formula feeding, when to start your child on solid food, when to send your child to preschool and kinergarten. Oh! Let’s not forget about extra activities like soccer, dance, music lessons, and swimming. You most assuredly make time for your child to do it all. God forbid a parent choose themselves over their child wants.

Do you sense my sarcasm yet? I hope so, and I hope you’ll join me in doing the following…

No more shaming.

No more blaming.

No more judging.

START supporting others.

Let’s get our views of perfection straight and get them in check. They are ruining amazing mom/dad friend opportunities. Let’s not assume that someone is shaming, blaming, or judging us. Instead, let us assume that the perfect parents are all of us and that we all want to support one another.

Let’s do this parenting thing y’all!

done is enough

How often do you fret over going the extra mile on the project that’s been assigned to you at work? How many times have you worried about finding the perfect vendor to complete an update or correction to something in your home? How often have you said no to a volunteer opportunity because you didn’t think you were knowledgeable enough? Have you ever considered that done is enough?

Over the years I’ve learned to let go on having that work email typed out and articulated “just” right. Once I learned to let go, I’ve been the editor for coworkers stressing about sending out the “perfect” email. More times than not, the final product is not all that different from the orignal version that was being fretted over for not being quite right.

Over the years my husband and I have spent hours looking into every possible lawn care company that could solve all of our problems. We’ve reached out to neighbors to find out what works for them and their yard. We’ve then worried if it’s worth the month, if there are too many chemicals, and what if we made the wrong decision. We spent so much time researching and worrying that it delayed having a beautiful yard we can enjoy.

Over the years I’ve recruited countless volunteers who doubted their ability to serve. They though that they couldn’t be a Girl Scout leader because they were never a Girl Scout, but they turned out to be the most dedicated to learning EVERYTHING about the program, it’s history, and how to lead their girls. These leaders were more than capable and simply needed to say yes and get through their orientation.

I’m not convinced that the driving factor in all of this is perfectionism. I am inclined to believe that it’s our own fear of judgement from others that we aren’t completing the job to perfection, choosing the best vendor for the job, or being the best person for a volunteer position. If we can let go of this fear of criticism or ridicule, we might we see that we did the best we could, we did find the right person for the job, and that we are a good fit for the opportunity.

Perhaps, if we can accept that done is enough, we will learn…

that anything we complete is done exceptionally well
we cannot spend all of our time researching, because we are missing out on other things in our life
that we are capable and called to serve for ne volunteer opportunities

Don’t be afraid to say yes and know that done is enough.

mommy brain is real

Whether you have kids or not, I’m certain you have heard about Mommy Brain. My dearest Erica (aka happedancing) always wondered if it was real, and then a few of her close friends had children. One of the first things she said to me was, “DUDE, mommy brain is real!” Of course I responded, “oh yes, mommy brain is definitely real! Thanks to it, I feel half-stupid all the time.”

Since having kids I have moments of feeling functionally crazy or off my rocker. Frequently my husband questions the half done projects, things left on the tables/counter, and tasks left undone around the house. I attribute all of this to mommy brain. But none of these compare to the Chicken Incident.

I was just a couple months postpartum from having our second when I invited my friend Steph and her daughter over for dinner. I warned her it wouldn’t be anything super fancy as we were running errands that day. We both agreed that time spent together was of greater importance than a fancy meal together.

The incident…

That afternoon I took a trip to Costco with the girls, to keep the oldest entertained (she LOVES their samples). I also went to get some needed groceries, and I picked up a rotisserie chicken. I almost always get a rotisserie chicken if it’s anywhere close to dinner, because I know I’ll get at least two meals out of it. Work smarter not harder right?

Once we got home I put the chicken in the oven to keep it warm until dinner time. Next I put on a pot of brown rice to cook, because I figured I might as well make the sides healthy if I was bailing out of cooking the main dish. Right about that time Stephanie arrived. The weather was so gorgeous we decided we had to go enjoy some time at the playground with our girls. After awhile we came back to the house thinking the rice would be almost done so we could get a vegetable made to go along with our easy but healthy dinner.

In the midst of doing this I remember that I needed to warm up the chicken since it had been a little while since we got home and turned the oven on (mind you our oven defaults to 350 degrees). I started preparing some broccoli to sautée on the stove, turned on the stove to get the cast iron skillet hot, and then I noticed something about the rice cooker. The remaining cook time on the rice was 75 minutes and we need to feed the girls in about 20 Minutes as it was close to meltdown time for two hungry three year olds.

Suddenly something smelt a little burny (I don’t think that’s really a word, but I’m going with it). Then I remembered that I had put the chicken in there earlier to keep it warm. The chicken now had it’s plastic container melted all around it. *face palm*

Mommy brain struck again and I had ruined dinner. I waited too long to start the brown rice, and most importantly the chicken was inedible with melted plastic all around it. This was moment that I could have chosen to cry, but all I could do was laugh and give thanks that I had a good friend with me.

We turned off dinner, loaded the kids in the car and went to Chick-fil-A. I may have had hopes of providing a healthy dinner of chicken, brown rice, and broccoli for dinner, but fed was definitely best that night. Not to mention the two almost hungry three year olds were tickled to have dinner together at one of their favorite places. I guess mommy brain isn’t always so bad for everyone?

Sick Baby

I had high hopes of getting a new post up today, but I’ve spent the weekend taking care of a sick baby since Friday. Luckily I had the day off as we had plans as a family to go down to Matthews, Virginia to spend the day with friends. Rather than spending the day in, on, or beside the water I spent Friday worrying about a pitiful baby who had a fever.

Luckily our pediatrician wasn’t worried and gave me a few care instructions:

Keep my sweet baby resting, nursing,and eating as much as we could.
Alternate doses of Tylenol and Motrin to get the fever down.
Call if anything changed in how frequently she was eating, wetting her diapers, or if the fever wasn’t down by Monday.

We followed instructions and it all seems to have worked. Thank you for understanding the lack of a more substantial post. See you back later this week.

The long silence

For the last year I’ve mostly been silent here on HebrewDawn, stopped posting my queued up Real Mom posts, and basically neglected you all. All I can say is I’m sorry, but I’m ready to open up about why.

In May 2016 I found out I was pregnant with our second, my oldest was getting close to turning three and blooming into being her own little person, and I suddenly had doubts about what or how much to share about my family. I’ve always been cautious about sharing their names, but details about their life and personality worry me too. What if someone uses info on my site or social media for the wrong reasons? What if I’m telling things my children will later wish I kept private? This internal wrestiling has gone on forever and then one of my favorite podcasts (Young House Love Has a Podcast) talked about this EXACT topic. Suddenly I didn’t feel alone, felt a little justified in my trepidation, and felt like I could back on the old blogging saddle.

I can honestly say that I have missed you all. I’ve heard from some of you during my writing silence asking what’s going on, and for that I am thankful. I hope you know that I have never taken you my followersfor granted have been saving things to share with you throughout my silence. Please hang in there as I come back to finding my writing rhythm, but I promise to not be so silent anymore! I have no plans to keep my family (particularly my kids) off the blog, but I do plan on changing how much you see of them on here and on social media. What all this will look like is still to be determined. Be back Monday with a new post from yours truly and Wednesday with a wellness post from Erica!

The end of pregnancy questions

First off, I want to say sorry this isn’t a more uplifting post, but I’m going to be honest about current and recent sentiments. I have been very quiet on HebrewDawn for much of my pregnancy, and I’m not completely certain as to why. Perhaps I just wanted to process my thoughts on this pregnancy and becoming a mom to two on my own before writing them. Moving forward I do plan to open up and share more about how life and motherhood is going with the transition from one girl to two, including all the ups and downs.

On to current feelings….

A little over a year ago I wrote this post for a few of my friends who were near or drawing near to their due dates, and here I find myself in their shoes. I’m days from my due date, and I’ve only hit my “over it” moment last week. Luckily, this was not as early as with my first, AND frankly I’m quite proud that I made it to 38 weeks and 2 days before hitting that point this time.

Now that I’m at the “over it” point of my pregnancy, the well meaning questions from every friend, family member, co-worker, and stranger off the street is driving me CRAZY. So here are my favorite questions, and how I wish I could respond:

How are you feeling? Tired of being pregnant and uncomfortable from the necessary body changes for labor to begin. Other than that I’m great, because this discomfort means I get to meet my baby soon!

How much longer do you have? No way of knowing as due dates are just an estimate! I’m “due” in a few days, but babies arrive anywhere between 39.5 and 41.5 weeks. Also, there are no plans to induce me unless we’re creeping up on 42 weeks. God, please don’t let that happen!

Do you know what you’re going to have? A human baby. At our 20 week ultrasound they said it’s a girl, and I’m praying it’s right. It would be really awkward to dress a baby boy in a little sister outfit.

You’re not going to go into labor right here are you? I could, but it doesn’t really matter. Labor takes quiet a bit of time to progress before a baby comes out. Last I checked babies don’t just fall out.

Are you still working? Yes, because there’s always work for me to get done. Oh, and there’s no reason to waste my maternity leave before the baby arrives.

Is the baby here yet? Not yet, and hopefully my little one will be here VERY soon. Just remember that as excited as you are for this baby to arrive, my husband, daughter, and I are the most excited and we are anxiously waiting for labor to start.

Will you tell me when the baby arrives? Yes! BUT those that need to know first (people present in the delivery room or taking care of my daughter, my boss) will be notified when I go into labor. Everyone else will find out after the baby is born, most likely via social media.

What are you doing while you wait?
I’m going to try and smile nicely to anyone asking one of these well meaning questions.

BUT I cannot promise that I won’t respond in a snarky fashion to the questions, that I won’t ignore phone calls, and that I’ll respond to every text message sent to me.

I do promise that I am going to relax as best I can and enjoy these final moments of being a family of three.