Exposed Movement

Who knew that getting half naked and writing some words with photo-shop on your body could inspire so many people? Michelle over at eatingjourney.com and Roni at ronisweigh.com inspired me with their Exposed posts and I did the same two months ago. See the original post here. Michelle has received a huge response and close to thirty women around the world, from Australia to Italy have done the same. It seems to resonate with so many women that we are constantly harping on the negative things when it comes to our bodies. This is what makes saying positive things so extraordinary.

Go to eatingjourney.com to check out some of the other amazing 'Exposed Posts'. And whether or not you take most of your clothes off and photo-shop words on for the world to see is not the important part. It is keeping those words in your heart and your head every day that matter.

Put Up or Shut-Up

I miss writing on this blog. I miss it more than I can say. I am so busy with work and with general insanity of life at the moment that I have lost my anchor to this little project of mine. I started this in 2006 as a way to keep in touch with not just friends and family, but to keep in touch with myself. There is something so amazing about putting my thoughts out there, to roam free in this world. It gives me time to stop and process through all that happens in my life with Maggie and Ben.

Now I know that many of my loyal readers (aka Mom and others) are slowing their visits down to this little site. My mom used to look on every day to see if there was something new. Some new pictures or a new story about her grandchildren. Now she sighs, 'You haven't updated the blog in a while.' So, when you start losing your mom as a reader, that is a sign. Put up, or shut up.

I can't keep saying I am going to write more and then not do it.

It is the same slippery slope I head down with diet and exercise and so many other things. I say I am going to exercise at least three days a week and start counting my Weight Watcher points again...but I don't. I say I will only allow a glass of wine one night a week...but I don't. I say I will work less, organize more, stay calm in the face of children's meltdowns...but I don't. I let the craziness of life overtake me and I let the things that are the best for me fall by the wayside. The healthy eating, the exercise, the writing. All of these things make me a happier person and a better mom. So, it is time to put up or shut up.

I am going to make a pre-New Year's Resolution. I vow to post at least twice a week, and include pictures every few posts. This along with exercising three days a week and no chips is a good start, don't you think? Mom?

"I Hate You."

Those three little words came out of my daughter's mouth to me the other day. I asked her why she was misbehaving and she flopped herself onto my bed and said, "Because I hate you!" I felt for a moment like the wind had been knocked out of me. Where had she learned that word? I would rather of had her say asshole then to say she hated me. She clearly knew how to use the sentence but not the power behind it.

I sat her down and my mother's voice projected into my head and out of my mouth, "Maggie, we don't say hate. Hate is a strong word. You can say you are disappointed in something or sad, or even angry, but you don't say hate. It is hurtful." And then I hugged her and told her I loved her and let her be.

Now whether she has heard me refer to 'hating' things in offhand comments, or saw this on TV, I am not sure. But I do know that it brought me to a moment where I realize she is growing up. Maybe she is only 3 and a half but she is forming memories, and decisions, and overwhelming attitude. She is loving and funny and wacky and so smart. But now more than ever I have to be loving and caring and watchful of my language. They are always listening and you never know what they will pick up and carry through.

I did meet my future teenager for a brief moment though, and it was not pretty.

Plane Post

When traveling for work, I am often a complete wreck due to being a fraidy flyer and all. But I sit here typing this entry from however many miles above and am pleasantly surprised to find WIFI a healthy substitute for the prescription anxiety medication I normally take when I fly. I am able to surf the net, get some work done, watch Instant Netflix, Facebook, Blog, and Twitter my anxiety away. I am currently bumping through turbulence and instead of clutching the arm rail, I am typing fast and furious while simultaneously watching Hulu. Life is good in this internet world my friends. We connect from the stars above. Home again, home again, jiggity jig,

Haiku Mom Is Back

Thanksgiving came and went. I ran the Turkey Trot, got sick, laryngitis, had a croupy kid, and am off to Chicago tomorrow on business. So, no time for all the photos and big recap so instead I think I will bring back the haiku. Please share with me your best stress-ridden haiku's.

working can be good
until i travel from them
balance is too hard

And just see the madness and the love of the cousins...

Maggie Growing

Yes, Miss Maggie is growing. She is becoming a kid in front of our very eyes. Complete with back-talking, excuses about nightmare, and quoting Daddy back about her farts by saying, "Dropping bombs!"

She is excitable, quirky, crazy even. She has imaginary friends, and they are usually TV-based characters which shows the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. She pushes her brother over when he annoys her and shows no remorse for it. Yet she coddles him and calls him her 'Benny Boy', and rushes to be the first one in his room when he is waking from a nap. 'Benny Boy, I'm coming!" she cries, rushing up the stairs.

She has some developmental issues as well. Smart as a whip, she knows her ABC's, her numbers and is starting to recognize and learn them and I can sense the early stages of reading... but she drools like a mad dog for a bone. She has been doing so for a long time now and I mentioned to her pediatrician and he wasn't worried because her language is great. But it keeps nagging at me, and creating puddles on clothing and in awkward situations, so I googled and found out about lots of animals that have drooling issues (who knew?) and that some kids have excessive drool that is related to disproportion between the tongue and lower jaw. This can lead to a speech impediment and since Maggie sounds a little like a Swedish girl on vacation, I think it is best we explore this route. So, I am on to some speech therapists to check it out.

But besides all the tantrums, the older sister domination, and the constantly wet chin, she remains a sweet, bright, and damn funny little thing...and gosh darn it, we love her.

The worst thing is...

I am always contemplating. As a busy working mom with two kids, a lot of my downtime consists of contemplation. But one thing keeps popping up over and over. One that resonates with so many of us and is unfortunately a source of some pain for me. That it is truly hard for friendships to survive. I have always had a lot of great friends and since I have lived in multiple locations, I have ended up with many across the country, and even the world.

But as time moves on that large group gets thinned out. Whether it be due to having dissimilar lifestyles- you have kids, they don't. You're married, they aren't. You're on one coast and have no money or time to visit. We're all so busy these days that maintaining some of even your greatest friendships becomes a bullet on your 'To Do' list that often slides down past things like:

• Get the kids their flu shots
• Refinance the house
• Work projects
  
• Have an actual date night with your spouse

This is a sad fact of life and I need to work harder to make sure this doesn't become a reality. Yes, of course you lose friends in a course of a lifetime. Some are just meant be be supporting roles in your life's Act I. Others who may have started out as supporting players become best friends in Act II. You cannot predict what brings people together and what can ultimately lead them apart. Most of my mother's bridesmaids from her first marriage to my father, when she was 20, she hasn't spoken to in nearly 30 years. But the ones from her second marriage to my step-dad, are like her sisters. Is this due to the maturity she had when she formed these friendships? The common threads they shared having young children?

The reason that I take this more personally is due to some experiences I had when I was young. In elementary school I had lots of friends and was 'popular' as you could only describe it in 5th grade terms. I was not the lost girl in the Judy Blume books yet, as I would find myself identifying with much more in middle school. When I arrived into the three years of 'hell' as I fondly refer to them, I was caught off guard with the ease of making new friends and the matching quickness to which they become enemies. I had two best girl friends for a period of time, through 7th grade. We shared the three-way split heart best friend necklace. We loved boys, and Puffalumps, and scrunchies. But at some point, I was whacked with a best friend 'break-up.' These two girls who I spent all my time with outside of my family, dumped me via passed note in a Geography class in 7th grade. To make matters worse, the teacher absconded the note and read it aloud for all of the class to hear. I suffered paralyzing stomach aches, skipped school to stay at home, and was miserable until I picked myself up and dusted myself off and made my way into a new group of friends, many of whom I still know today.

But that experience and others scarred me in a way that comes back to me time and time again. It made me so desperate to hang onto friendships, that I cultivated many. But sometimes quantity over quality isn't the best move. Because now that I am a mom, an adult, and am so head over heels busy in life, it makes it that much harder to keep cultivating these friendships. Yet many of us can go weeks, months, and even years without talking and when we finally do it is like coming home again. Even so, that nagging feeling of missing them in those off times is something that like the ebb and flow of the tides, becomes just part of your every day.

I wish we could all live down the street from one another, have BBQs and game nights, and have all of our spouses become best friends like we wished for when we were younger. But that is a dream reserved for sets of twins who marry another set of twins, and quite frankly, I am not sure I want THAT much closeness anyway. In this day and age of social media I see that we have ended up with "BBQs" down the street from more than 300 of our friends and acquaintances. I personally have embraced the use of Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with friends and family. I started this blog over three years ago for that exact reason. And for those good friends of mine who use these outlets, we stay oddly in touch with each other even if we don't speak for months. I worry that in these days of social media, and texting over talking, what we think of as conventional friendships will be a thing of the past. Bloggers become friends without ever meeting. This can be risky, even dangerous in some respects but this can be such a good thing for people as well. People become pals using supportive forums from everything from trying to conceive to a shared disease.

Regardless of this new era, I know that I need to tend the gardens of these friendships a little better. Actual phone calls, an occasional present in the mail, a nice handwritten note. I need to leave the guilt, the Judy Blume issues of my past, the sadness and regret to other dysfunctional friendships and be happy with all the ones that I have, even if I get only brief moments with them.