Jealous ? heck yeah..

                 
                           Jealousy is a horrible emotion. It is mentioned in the 10 commandments as "not to covet thy neighbor's wife" , it is one of the 7 Deadly Sins and quite frankly, it just isn't NICE. I have succumbed to this emotion many times in my life, and every time I was jealous of things that were beyond my control.
                            In my childhood I was jealous of all my friends who had siblings because I was an only child. There was nothing I could do to change that situation, my parents only wanted one child.So the jealousy was a wasted emotion. As I got a little older I was jealous of the kids who could excel in math with their eyes closed, and never have to study in school. I always had to "apply myself" , damn those kids who could skate right on through. I made it through school fine though , and learned a lot of study skills along the way, so really nothing to be jealous about. As I got even older I was jealous of those women who never had to exercise to stay thin. This is unfathomable to me, if I didnt exercise I would be on an episode of  Springer because they would have to break a wall to get me out of my house. So I would see these thin women, some of which are my friends, and say "so, where do you work out?" Their answer of "nowhere" would leave me green with envy. This is no longer a jealousy issue for me because I workout to live longer and keep my heart in shape as I have a family history riddled with just about every disease known to man.I have given up on abs of steel, I am purely looking for longevity.
                             This is the point in my blog where most of you are probably like," what is your point Krista?" Well I have a new jealousy now. It involves parents of children who do everything perfect. I blame Facebook for this. It reminds me that my child has not received his early acceptance to Harvard, or hit 3 home runs in one game, or has a 5.0 GPA. I have 3 children and currently none of them are doing any of these things. In fact the older one has a D in his honors math class , the middle one talks back to me ad nauseum, and the little one is never allowed to go to specials on Friday but instead goes to "social skills" and writes me a letter explaining his bad behavior for the week. This is my reality, people! So, when I peruse Facebook and see nothing but shining reports of children, I get a little twinge of the green eyed monster. However , the years of being jealous of things beyond my control have taught me that maybe something good will come out of all this...maybe Zach will learn to reach out to others for help and figure out a way to boost his grade so that is teaching him there is more than one way to learn.Maybe Mikey will learn to not talk to his neighbor in class or make fart sounds with his armpit in the middle of reading time by experiencing the shame of "social skills"class, even if as he says"all my friends go there anyway".Maybe Sophie will learn to hold her tongue and walk away before digging herself a deeper hole, thus teaching self control. (stop laughing at this:))
                  I am glad that when I was growing up there was no social media for my mother to read and realize that quite possibly I was socially stunted or never going to amount to anything because that would have made her think she's a bad mother and be jealous of those around her , and she was not and she had no reason to be.Just like me...hopefully...

Krista Who?

            Sophie had to write a poem in language arts about someone in her family , she chose me. I thought I would share...
                                        Krista who works like a robot,
                                         and asks what's wrong?
                                        Who is generous and sincere,
                                         Who is a freeway and a chauffer.
                                         Whose heart is made of gold,
                                           is too tired to play today.
                                         Who tells me to eat my dinner,
                                          Who tells me I've crossed the line.
                                            Whose green eyes are careful,
                                            can't make it to all my sporting events.
                                            Who sleeps in pitch black to get her beauty sleep,
                                              who used to be all fun and play.
                                            Is a terrific person,
                                             is a true friend.
                                            Who doesn't trust life anymore,
                                              is sweeping away her feelings.
                                              Who talks to her kids like it's the last time,
                                                 is the dock that keeps the boat afloat like a strong soldier.
                                              Ask who respects her?
                                               who respects her? who? - Sophie Davidson age 12

Someone should tell you..it never gets easier

                                  Being a mother is hard. This , to my fellow mother friends, is a very obvious statement.  I always expected as the years passed , and kids graduated from diapers to pull-ups to needing privacy in the bathroom, things would get less hard.  It hasn't . It is a different kind of hard, though. It is no longer the physically exhausting, manual labor (dragging 3 kids and a stroller through the grocry store )kind of hard. It is the mentally draining, when do i interfere , when do I let them fail , and how do i allow all that to occur kind of hard. Believe it or not, there are days I miss the Pull -Ups.
                                    I love all my children , but they all require very different things from me as a mother. And usually , they are all requiring it at the same time. I feel there are days I am doing a shitty job, sometimes these days string together and begin to turn into weeks... My oldest is a great person, but requires a lot of pushing and motivating from me in the school department of his life. So I push. Then I see the look of strain on his face and i stop . Then he fails a test.  See, shitty job. But , he is 15 years old , and can take the reins himself now  , and the question of how hard to push comes into play. See, I told you Pull -Ups are easier to deal with:)
                                     My daughter is a bright , outspoken, extremely funny girl. She wants to experience everything , and she also wants to buy everything . I have to say no to her...a lot. Due to her outspokeness, she lets me know that these are the days I do a shitty job, because no is a word she doesn't digest very easily. It was way easier to say no to the 4 year old Sophie who would ask for 3 Peppermint pattys before dinner, put up with 5 minutes of screaming and move on to the next thing. But saying no to the 12 year old Sophie who wants to go to the mall or Busch Gardens with her friends proves more painful..for the both of us. Yet, I am the mother and though it is hard and I am probably a model for a voodoo doll in her room, I must say no.
                                        The child I question myself the most about , however, is my sweetest ,most easy going one...Mikey.  he is his father in a 9 year old form. I love his father, but I didn't have to raise him (well, not REALLY). Mikey is complacent at best, when it comes to school and will do the minimum required of him. He gets no A's on a report card , just B's and C's. There have been emails and conferences and questions to all the educational professionals at his school , because face it I'm type A when it comes to education. They all say "he's fine" , "he'll do just fine". I, however , think his attitude was created by me. Did i spend so much time helping the two older ones with their stuff , that he fell to the back burner? Was I just too tired at night to monitor how much and if he was reading?  So, now we have implemented some rules , here is where the hard being a mother thing comes in. I took away Xbox during the week, so he must only read and interact with his family at night. Crazy, huh? You would think I put him in a Russian prison by the way he reacted, and I heard him say , under his breath "shitty job" . Well, maybe i imagined that but I could read it in his big blue eyes.
                                             So I guess what they view as a "shitty job" and what I view as a "shitty job" are different, but the feeling is the same :Never good enough, and never quite sure what the right decision is. But i am their mother and I will continue to be here everyday to help them (or hinder, depends who you ask) and I am sure this job will remain hard until the day I die.