Messy Twin Day

     My girls love spirit dress up days for school.  As a mom I hate spirit dress up days for school.  We usually  try to make sure that they have their outfits picked out the night before but it still makes for a crazy morning.  We have been through every theme day you can imagine.  Grinch day, Favorite Team day, Rockstar day, Crazy Hat day, Crazy Sock day, Crazy Hair day, and every color day that you can imagine are just a few of the wild things we need to come up with for spirit weeks.  My mornings are already chaotic and adding a dress up day always boosts the level of chaos.  This week was "Kindness Week" at our elementary school.  However, on Twin Day there was not a lot of kindness that was being shown.

     My nine year old is super excited for any reason to dress up at school.  Twin day was on Wednesday this week.  On Tuesday I reminded her by saying "Make sure you ask someone to twin with you and decide what you are going to wear."  To my surprise when I got home from work on Tuesday night my third grader was still awake.  She saw me as I was checking in on her and instantly started sobbing.  Through her crying I was able to decipher that nobody wanted to be her twin at school.  I knew that wasn't the whole truth so I probed to get more of the story.  She had asked one of her good friends to be her twin and that friend was already twinning with another girl.  Her friend suggested that they be triplets.  The other girl, who does not like my daughter, assertively said no.  This exchange broke my sweet girls heart into a million pieces.  As a result she shut down and refused to ask anyone else to be her twin. 

     I know that in the grand scheme of things twin day is not the end of the world.  However, to my sweet little lady it was.  For my nine year old this encounter was worse than a massive car wreck.  She cried for about an hour and it broke my heart.  Not wanting her to cry herself to sleep alone I insisted she sleep in our bed.  Reassuring her that others would have been her twin if she would have asked did not help. Explaining when she feels like she doesn't belong she always belongs to us did not help.  Suggesting other options like dressing as her favorite tv character tomorrow didn't help.  She was hurting and couldn't hear any of it.  Additionally all of my suggestions were stupid because she is nine and I am her mother.  She was tired which amplified her emotions and I knew things would look different in the morning.  The next morning she decided to wear all black to school.  I thought maybe this is the beginning of her emo goth phase.  Then I wrote an email to the teacher to make her aware of the situation.  She handled it amazingly and I love that she is our teacher this year. 

     My girls are going to get left out that is part of life.  My girls are going to get their hearts broken.  My girls are going to have some crying days.  Even though I know this it doesn’t make it any easier when it happens.  When my girls are hurting I am hurting too.  I wish I could stop them from feeling all the hurt because that has been part of my job since they were born.  During that rough night I was telling my sobbing nine year old that this would make her stronger one day and she was screaming "I DON'T WANT TO BE STRONGER!"  I felt her pain and agreed that getting stronger is the worst.  

     Twin day is the worst.  Getting stronger is the worst.  Learning life lessons the hard way is the worst.  I wish I could learn these lessons for them and they didn't have to go through all the pain.  Unfortunately that is not how life works.  The good news is we have all been left out and then suddenly found our place where we belong.  We have all been rejected and then found acceptance with someone better.  We have all been outcasted and then found our favorite friend.   As their mother I will hug them, cry with them, and let them sleep in my bed so they don't feel alone.  The best I can do is let them know that they will never be alone since I am their Mom.  They will always belong to me whether they like it or not.  Hopefully someday they will appreciate that.  Until then I will just keep giving the stink eye to the girls that are mean to them.  Like a good mother should.

Messy Village

     I never understood the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child" until I actually had a child.  Even if you only have one child it still takes a village to raise them.  I always say the more people in my kids lives the better.  We moms need our village in many different ways.  Sometimes I need help with household tasks like cooking or cleaning.  Sometimes I need help physically getting the kids places.  Sometimes I need help loving on my littles because I don't have the energy.  Communities are essential for so many different reasons.  They are beneficial for the mom, the kids, and the community.  I am deliberately raising my kids to be part of many different communities.

     This week my nine year old had the word community on her vocabulary test.  Every morning I would ask "What does the word community mean?".  She would answer the definition on the list "A community is a group of people who live in the same area."  Every morning I would say "Well yes but there is more to a community than that."  I would go to explain all the different types of communities and all the benefits of having so many different communities.  She is nine so she would aggressively reply "Mom!  Move on to the next word."  She really just needed to know the quick definition to get the right answer on the quiz.  However, I wanted to make sure that she was aware of all the people in our lives that have supported and helped us.  Trying to show my girls our village is important and teaching them to be thankful for the community is necessary.  Although maybe I should save those lessons when we are not studying for a third grade vocabulary quiz.

     At our family functions I have always been a baby stealer.  This was a trait that I inherited from my aunts.  I am one of the younger cousins in our extended family.  Therefore most of my cousins were having babies before me.  Every time there was a family gathering I was one of the first to muscle my way in a steal a baby.  I was beyond happy to feed a toddler, walk and rock a baby to sleep, or throw a ball with a little kid.  These small actions were fun for me especially since I didn't have kids of my own.  I did not realize how awesome this was for the moms.  Now that I'm on the other side I appreciate someone performing these tasks even more.  Having a family member take my kids literally off of me for a few hours is totally rejuvenating.  Sometimes you don't realize how much you need something until it is happening.  Whenever someone in my family starts to entertain one of my demanding children, it feels like a fifty pound weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  This village restores me with a break so that I can be a better mom tomorrow.

     Moms are a community by our shared life experience of keeping tiny humans alive.  I love my mom community.  Some of my mom friends are online, some of them live across the street, and some of them live farther away.  Whatever way I find myself connecting with these brilliant mothers they all fill my cup.  My days are long while taking care of my destructive three year old.  The only way I survive this chaotic life is to find solidarity with all my motherhood communities.  Sending a quick message to my online parent group or calling up another mom friend to vent is the only way I make it through most of my days.  As I write this my toddler just poured goldfish and water into a the cup holder of the couch.  Time to send another message while I wait for her to get out of time out. 

     People were not meant to be alone.  This logic translated into a lot of different areas of my life but motherhood is the most important.  The value of my village is indescribable for my sanity.  I love being part of all my different communities.  I love being the one that gives the help to others.   I love receiving help with my littles.  I love that my girls get to grow up seeing all these benefits of our communities.  Showing my girls to be appreciative of all the different people in our village is important.  I never want them to feel alone.  Letting them be proud of helping the community and being helped by the community is great to learn.  So if you need a lasagna or a venting session about your kids I am here for you.  Additionally anyone in my village can take any of my children anytime they want.  Especially when we are trying to study for a vocabulary quiz.   

Dinner Time is Always Messy

     Feeding my children is one of the most difficult tasks I have on a daily basis.  Feeding them three meals a day and snacks makes this one job seem almost impossible.  I have three very different girls with three very different tastes.  Somedays I feel more like a short order cook than a Mom.  Everyday I hear things like "That looks disgusting." or "I can't eat this." or the most common one "EW GROSS!"  Finding something that all my children are extremely happy with is not something that bothers me anymore.  As far as I am concerned I am not here to cater to my girls' extreme tastes.  If that was my ultimate goal it would consume all of my time and energy.  There are so many other things that I need and want to do with my life so making five different meals three times a day would be stupid.  Instead I have decided that it is ok for my children to sometimes be upset during meals or even not eat a meal.

     My six year old has control anxiety disorder.  This manifests in many different ways.  One of her control triggers is if her food is touching.  We bought those plates that separate all the food with dividers.  Brilliantly we thought this solved the problem.  However, one day we didn't have a divider plate clean and she had a meltdown.  Once we discussed things with her therapist she informed us that she needs to learn to eat on a plate without dividers.  It is always a tough decision whether to make my girls better humans or make my life easier.  Honestly if her therapist hadn't told us to, we would have tried to always use the divider plates.  Those amazing gadgets made my life way easier.  Now I know that every once in a while I need to give her food on a normal plate.  Every time I remind her to use her breathing.  Every time I remind her that it all mixes together in her stomach.  Every time I remind her that it is all going to be ok.  All this is happening during her screaming and crying while everyone else is trying to eat dinner.  Dinner time is always lovely.

     Occasionally I find a new recipe that looks awesome.  I summon up the courage and energy to take on something new even though it will probably be met with mixed reviews.  It might take me thirty minutes to make a recipe or it might take over an hour.  The reception of new recipes can never be predicted.  Even dinners I am positive will go over well still remain a mystery.  I could make something like hotdogs for dinner.  My girls love hotdogs.  I put the dinner on the table with confidence that we are going to have no fights during dinner tonight and I can eat in peace.  Absurdly my nine year old says "I hate hotdogs."  This kind of blind siding happens more than I would care to admit.  Other times I will make something like Shrimp Scampi with the certainty that none of my kids will even bother to touch their dinner.  Shockingly all of my girls devoured every bite in seconds.  Predicting meals when it comes to kids eating is impossible.  I have decided to stop trying to figure it out and go with the pasta flow. 

      Who made these food rules?  Who decided that it was ok to have pop tarts and cereal for breakfast but not chips?  I have decided to no longer conform to these arbitrary ideas.  If my toddler wants chips for breakfast I will help her open the bag.  If my toddler wants pop tarts for lunch I will put them in the toaster for her.  With all the struggles I have on a daily basis when it comes to feeding my children, why would I put more restrictions on myself.  Our pediatrician once said that a toddler's nutrition should be averaged over a three day period.  If she eats one good meal every three days I am convinced we are winning the war.  I fight a million battles everyday with my strong willed women and making them eat is something that no longer consumes me.  I will try to monitor things to the best of my abilities and occasionally as them what they want to have for dinner.  Although since there are three of them this usually causes a fight too.  So I'll wait for those rainbow moments when everyone is happy with dinner and we get to have a dinner without crying or complaining.  Let's be honest they will eat will they are hungry.