Wasting Life Away Worrying

As I was sitting on the couch tonight holding the 4 year old on my lap as he fell asleep, I realized how much I worry about my kids. I'm a worrier in general - I can worry about anything that pops into my head this second. I'm worried about taking the kids to the eye doctor tomorrow - see what I mean? It just popped into my head. I was thinking that my little boy is already 4, and a big 4 at that, and I wonder how fast time will really go. I thought of school and high school and then moving out on his own - all in a matter of seconds. It turned my stomach. I want my boys to be strong, independent and capable. At the same time, I'm terrified of what the world can and will do to them. I have these horrible thoughts of them being harmed by random gunfire or barfights gone bad or a mandatory draft for some god forsaken war - all that stuff you hear about on the news that you never think will touch your life personally, until it does. I suppose any parent can worry about these things, but what good does worrying do? I don't want to shelter them and keep them too close, but I'm terrified of what could happen when I let them go. It's a frightening thought to let your children make their way in the world, in today's world, but I'm sure my parents felt the same way as I was growing up. So far I'm okay. I can only hope and pray tragedy doesn't fall upon my family. But why shouldn't it? See - I'm worried.

Like Mother . . .

Sometimes I feel like I'm messing up my kids. I have a feeling this is common with mothers, but for some reason I feel I surpass other moms here. Whether it's screaming at the 4 year old because he just won't listen or dragging him to time out because he just won't listen or sending him to his room because he just won't listen - you see what I'm getting at? Not only do I think this is creating angst in him, I feel it's creating angst in baby boy as well. All this yelling and dragging and threatening - it can't be good for the psyche. I don't know if I just don't have any patience left or I never had it to begin with. I often wonder if it would be this difficult if I had girls instead of boys. For some reason I picture girls just sitting and playing nicely for hours on end. My boys can sit and play with something for approximately 5.3 minutes before moving on to something else. Now I find the 4 year old does a lot of yelling and screaming at me. He gets angry VERY easily and yells and jumps up and down. Even the baby screams at me with his fist in the air. Wonder where they got that from?

No Peace

Ever feel like you're here for something more? Ever feel restless but don't know how to feel fulfilled? This is my life on a daily basis. I CONSTANTLY feel like I should be doing something else or be somewhere else. I drive down streets in ritzy zip codes and wonder what I did wrong not to live in a house like that. I see other people creating art and writing novels and think I should be doing something like that. I am never at peace. I thought children would bring me some peace but instead I feel more frustration. I feel trapped. I feel conflicted. I feel . . . empty. That's cruel because I love my children to pieces and would trade them for nothing but I feel lost in their lives. Their lives of details steal from my life. Horrible - I know. I wanted so much to be a mother and now I am. But I haven't yet figured out who I am. I can't be just a mother. There has to be more. That's partly why I started blogging but I don't appear to be successful at that either. Maybe I need to post pictures with my blog. People are visual - maybe that would draw them in to read. I'm still at a loss but hope to find myself. If not here, then somewhere and I'll write about it here.

What To Do, What To Do?

I find the hardest thing for me on a daily basis is finding something for us to do. Here in NJ, the weather has been unbearably hot and humid this summer making it impossible to have the kids outside for extended periods of time, or any time at all for that matter. I am fortunate enough to have a big yard with shade and a pool but the 4 year old gets bored quickly and I really can't handle the 2 of them alone in the pool. Turns out baby boy is WILD in the water so he needs my full attention. Keeping busy in the house starts to wear on everyone, especially me. "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." How many times can I hear that through the course of the day? There's only so much mall-walking we can do, especially with a bored 4 year old. Everything is either expensive or outdoors. It literally gets to the point where the baby comes at me with his sandals in his hand looking to get out of the house. Whine, whine, whine, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line, what do I do with the kids today?

I'm Back

I've been thinking about this blog for quite a while now and realize I need to commit to it more. The best laid plans, blah, blah, blah, but I'm really going to try to continue more consistently. I find myself having questions or needing to write things down now that the boys are getting bigger so I'm going to remind myself that a place already exists for me to pen my thoughts. Just an update to refresh where we are: the boys are now 4 and 14 months. They each had a birthday in May and we kept it simple with just family in attendance. These kid birthday parties are a topic for another day. Baby boy is walking up a storm. He started walking at about 12 months and there's just no stopping him. He's a very different baby than the little guy. Baby boy likes to sleep for about 11 or 12 hours per night and seems a bit more independent at this age than the first. Time is FLYING with the second - a comfort and a drawback. I'm definitely not chronicling baby boy's life as much as the first one. I just mentioned to dear hubby this morning that we need to take more video of baby boy since his life is just cruising along. I once heard in a movie that people want someone to witness their life, that's why they want a spouse or significant other. I feel the same is true for children. As parents, we witness their life every day - the good, the bad, and the ugly - and take it for granted. But actually keeping record of it is another story. We get caught up in the daily details that we sometimes forget this is a life worth witnessing. Each day is a new discovery to them and it needs to be noticed. I need to remind myself of that and capture the daily happenings in some way before they're off to college.