Just Try Harder

I remember when I first became a stay at home mom back in 2010 and my kids were 2.5 years and 9 months old. I remember thinking to myself that I had it all.
I had a husband who was in school and working. I had gorgeous, healthy children. I had friends. I loved church.
Money didn't matter. We weren't ever rich but I didn't care. We payed our bills. We fed our children.
I was happy.
I had everything I had ever wanted.

It's been 4 years and 3 months since then. Everything has changed. Most of the things I loved don't feel existent right now.

I miss out on so many things with my children. Parties at school, playdates, moments when they just want their mom, etc. I'm not always there. I can't always be there.

I hate it.

I don't hate my job. I don't hate school. But I really, truly find myself resenting divorce because of the many changes.

A lot of the times I can get through the hard moments, trusting that there are also many beautiful moments ahead. I try to stay positive. I try to forgive and not judge and love the people around me.

But I don't always succeed. Today I didn't succeed.

Today it wasn't possible to be tough and hold back the tears like I normally do. I couldn't handle the stress.
I couldn't handle the thought of one more day where my kids would have neither of their parents at a school program to cheer them on.
And then I got a call that Ninja had an accident at school and I cried thinking about everything our divorce has put him through. He isn't as emotionally transparent as his sister but the scars are still there. The accidents and the finger-sucking and the baby talk---they are all signs that he is hurting and scared.

The guilt was weighing heavily on me. And along with the guilt, I was angry at the decisions that placed us all in this position. I thought I had let that all go or that I was at least getting better about letting it go but today it all came back.

Today it felt like a punch in the stomach.

All of these things I didn't choose that have effected my life in some of the most heart-wrenching ways just seem so unfair and messy.

When my heart feels this way, it's really hard to not question God. When everything first went down a year ago, I seriously wondered if He had made a mistake in allowing yet another hard thing into my life. Although I know He doesn't make mistakes, I still doubted my capabilities.

Let me rephrase that---I still doubt my capabilities. I do. It isn't a constant doubt but it shows up from time to time.

I used to wonder why certain people didn't seem as engaged at church or didn't attend every Sunday. I used to find myself wondering and maybe even judging people who were less active. Although I was a defiant teenager, I had never truly experienced those feelings {until this past year} and my lack of understanding caused me to think they must've not been trying hard enough.

It sounds so simple. Just try harder.

I love my church. I have a strong testimony and know that Jesus Christ died for me. But I struggle to feel like I belong. I often feel alone when surrounded by some of the most incredible people in my life who are there for me at church. I hold babies and make comments and sing hymns but it isn't always easy. In fact, a lot of the times it is really hard.

I struggle to keep my children in sacrament meeting. That has always been a challenge with my son. I try to stay patient but we usually end up in the hallways or we go late so I don't have to deal with it.

I struggle to stay in Relief Society---especially when we talk about eternal marriage or families. It is really painful to know you don't have what so many people have. It's hard to feel like people don't understand why you're single. It's hard to hear those lessons and feel like a piece of you is missing because your family is broken. You are no longer the "typical Mormon family".

I struggle to substitute in Primary callings. Because after that first hour of "heaven and hell" all I want to do is drop my kids off and breathe for two hours...and then go home and take a nap.

But I should just try harder, right? That's what I would've told myself a few years ago. I should go to church and set the example for my kids and practice more patience.

There are days I don't want to go to church. There have been moments in the past year where I've decided I wasn't going to go back. My testimony has always gotten me there but it doesn't take the struggles away.

It is possible to have a testimony and not want to go to church.

It is possible to feel an aversion to prayer or scripture study and not be a horrible Mormon.

It is.

I know what I want to teach my children. I still fight most weeks to get us all to church. But it is hard. Being a good Christian no longer looks the same way that it used to in my mind. Being a good Christian means trying---sometimes failing---but getting up and trying again. It means fighting for peace when peace seems nonexistent. It means trying to love myself the way my God loves me---and that includes not beating myself up for missing church or falling asleep without praying.

Although I often have an easier time talking about things "after the fact", I want today to be real. I am staying afloat. I am not swimming like a champion and I am not drowning. I am just struggling to float and not fall any further.

I don't necessarily doubt that we will get through this divorce and stand strong like the warriors that we are but somedays, like today, are just so hard.

I know my kids will see my sacrifices someday. I know they will understand when they are older. I'm just so done with missing out on so many things and feeling so exhausted from trying to be their mom and provide for them and giving myself time to be me.

It's probably not impossible---but it seems impossible today.

ANASAZI Lessons

 Raising children is hard.
Going to school is hard.
Working is hard.
Keeping my house clean is hard.

Trying to do all four of them as a single mom is hard.

And lately, I feel like I've been failing in at least 3 of these categories at a time. I've been so overwhelmed. My eyes start to droop around 7pm because I'm just so exhausted. I don't know if I've ever felt this exhausted, not even as a mom of a newborn. But maybe I just forgot what that felt like.

I've had so many nights where I lay in bed and wonder how I'm going to get everything done the next day. How am I going to have time to sweep the floor and fold some laundry and do two homework assignments and give my kids quality time with their mom?

And the thing is, I don't have time for it all. That would explain the sticky floors, the sink full of dishes, and the laundry that's been sitting in the washer for a few days. It would also explain the amount of tv my kids have watched in the past week.

I've felt like a failure so many times in the past week and most nights, I'm so close to tears when I think about the times I told Petey she had to pack her own school lunch or get her and her brother breakfast because I just couldn't do it.

But we've pushed through. When I feel like I can't keep doing this, I keep doing it anyway. I just focus on one small step at a time.

Today as I was thinking about one of my favorite motto's, "I can do hard things", my mind went back to 17 year old me.

 This is her. Her name is Kissing Sun Firefly and she spent six weeks of her summer learning how to make fire out of wood and a piece of rope, cooking with a tin can and dried foods, hiking 20+ miles a week with everything she had on her back, and sleeping under the stars every night.

Out there, I learned what it means to do hard things. There were so many nights I would cry myself to sleep because I was so lonely out there. I often felt misunderstood by my parents and even by my group of youngwalkers and trailwalkers. That first week was physically exhausting and I got so dehydrated that I was vomiting uncontrollably during one of my first big hikes.

I remember feeling like I would die out there. I remember being so embarrassed that I had gotten dehydrated and I wondered how I would ever make it. But I kept focusing on one more step and then one more and one more until finally, I had made it to our week's destination. I remember the tall grass, the ants all over the dirt, and the girl with the curliest blonde hair I'd ever seen reading her Book of Mormon to me to calm me down. I layed there under the sun, wondering how I had gotten from point A to point B without dying.

I felt like I had accomplished something so incredible that day.

A few weeks later, we were hiking through a dried up river bed and I had my hands through my sleeping bag/backpack and all of a sudden, I tripped and my hands weren't able to catch my fall. But my face did. I could feel my lip swelling as the blood ran down my chin. I couldn't do this anymore! Hiking was too hard. I couldn't handle being out in the middle of nowhere and getting hurt. But I kept going that day. I cried a lot because my battle wound really hurt but I kept hiking and we made it to our destination. That afternoon, I walked down to the dried creek bed and sang, "For Good" from Wicked over and over again. I cried. I sang. I listened to the wind. I felt peace. I knew I could finish this hard thing. I knew I could work things out with my parents and believe in myself.

I knew I could do hard things.

ANASAZI taught me lessons I still apply in my life. It was a turning point in my life. I was strong before ANASAZI but when I came back from those six weeks, smelling worse than death but feeling happier than I had in a long time, I was a warrior.

And I'm still a warrior.

I have felt so much failure recently that I have to take a step back and look at the big picture. Sometimes the small picture doesn't show me what I've accomplished because it emphasizes all of the things I'm doing wrong.

But the big picture---the big picture shows me how far I've come and how much I am capable of enduring.

So tonight, I'm not going to focus on my messy house or my children that went to bed in their school clothes. I'm going to focus on the fact that I worked five hours and came home and did homework with my daughter while babysitting two extras, and then I took 3 online quizzes and got all A's and wrote an essay.

And now I'm here and it's ok that I'm still not choosing to clean. I've done enough for today.

I can't do it all but I can do enough.

And God Said, "Slow down!"

 Once upon a time, I was in the school counselor's office trying to figure out how to graduate from community college by May 2015. It was decided that I would take 17 credits Fall '14 and 15 credits Spring '15 so that I'd be ready to graduate and transfer to ASU.

I chanted the, "I can do hard things" quote in my head over and over again as I signed up for 6 classes and tried to figure out a schedule that worked for my life.

Sigh...

It took most of the summer. I kept leaving the task for another day because it was stressing me out.

Sometimes being a single mom sucks. It was so dang hard to find a schedule that would fit the classes I need and keep us in a mostly normal routine.

I finally did it and signed up for all Tuesday/Thursday classes, all during the day---except for one stupid class that I could only find on Thursday nights.

I figured the sacrifice would be something I could handle for four months. And the thing is, it was possible.

But right when school started, I decided to go back to work. And right when I decided to go back to work, Spidey started preschool.

And right when all of this happened, Spidey started crying a lot when he would get dropped off to babysitters.

And my mom guilt became a huge burden because all I wanted to do was quit everything and stay home with him all day, every day.

So let's recap:
A week into my new job and school starting, I was ready to throw it all away.
A week.

 Well, God knows me. He knows I won't just quit, even when things are really frickin hard. He knows I'll kill myself until I get everything fit into our crazy schedule.

I'm the least perfect perfectionist in the entire world. Our house is crazy, our schedule is crazy, and my kids are sticky-faced and wearing mismatched shoes.

But I'm really hard on myself and I try to fit it all in and get it all done.

 Well, due to some unforseen circumstances, I was dropped from my Thursday night class. When I found this news out, I had a moment of panic and I just wanted to crawl in a hole. But following my panic, I felt an incredible amount of peace come over me and I felt like God was saying, "Slow down!"

He knows how busy we are. He knows that it's hard for Spidey to get used to having a working mom. And I feel like he found a way to teach me that it's ok to slow down a little bit.

I can't be a super mom. I can be the mom that my kids need but I really can't be much more.

Most days, I'm just hanging on by a thread. I've been struggling a lot lately and I just can't seem to find my bravery that everyone else seems to believe I have within me. I'm not giving myself breaks. In fact, I've been pushing myself harder than ever before.

So God said, "Slow down." and all I could do was nod my head and realize that He is right.

I have my whole life ahead of me. I'm only 26 years old and my kids are still young. We can slow things down a tiny bit sometimes. As much as I want to rush through school and be able to provide a better life for my kids RIGHT NOW, I feel a whole lot of peace tonight as I think about how rushed we already are.

I can do hard things...but I don't have to push myself farther than I need to right now.

It's ok that I need to slow down. It doesn't make me weak. It just makes me human.

Back To Work!

 Four years ago, I was faced with a really hard decision.

Keep working or quit my job.

At the time, Petey was 2.5 and Spidey was 9 months old. It had been really difficult for me to continue working since Spidey had been born but I knew that is what our family needed me to do at that time.

But 9 months into his life, the possibility of staying home became more of a reality. I prayed about it and decided to put in my two weeks at Gilbert Pediatrics.

And for the past four years, I have been a stay at home mom.

I have loved so many things about these past four years. I have loved being with my children and taking them places and having more freedom to make our own decisions of what our day would look like. I have loved watching them grow up from babies into school-age children and being their main influence during these times. I realize just how lucky I am to have had these past four years.

Then a year ago happened. And when a year ago happened, I was faced with another heavy decision---keep staying home or go back to work. And again, I found myself on my knees, pleading with my Heavenly Father to find a way for me to continue to be with my children. With all of the issues they have had, they needed me this year. I don't doubt the decisions I made.

But now I am in a different situation. A year has gone by and I have a child in school full time.

Then my baby decided to go and start preschool...

Really? Is he really old enough for this?

And last week, my sister asked if I would be willing to help her catch up on some billing things down at Gilbert Ped's and I told her that would definitely be a possibility for a few weeks.

And I can't even describe to you how everything has fallen into place. From the preschool schedule to the babysitting to the timing of this job, it has all kind of worked out.

I could do it for two weeks. I knew I could. Even though I wouldn't be there to pick up Spidey from his first day of preschool, we would get through this and he probably wouldn't even care.

But after working most of the day on Friday, I started thinking about how much I love working for my dad's office and being in that environment and I started budgeting and looking at the financial difference it would make.

And so I made a proposal to my sister and my boss and asked for a part time job.

So now I work.

I am a working, single mother of two and a FULL TIME STUDENT with 17 credits.

I might lose all of my hair by the end of the semester but I know that this is what needs to happen right now.

My mom guilt has set in and I made a phone call to Spidey when he got to the babysitter's house after school today to see how preschool went. Of course, he talked for about 5 seconds before handing the phone back.

 It is REALLY hard for me to think about the fact that I am leaving him 5 days a week between work and school and then I have to give him up every other weekend. I am going to miss our leisure mornings together, snuggling up on the couch and talking about life. This kid has been my life for the past four years. My identity has been mother and I have loved it. I still love it. But now I have other identities.

 Just as it was hard to let my big girl go to school ALL DAY, it is going to be an adjustment to get used to being away from my boy.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have the opportunities that I do and there may be a day where I am a stay at home mom again.

But for now, I will make the most of the afternoons I have with my kids and the weekends we get to spend together.

Busy Weeks

Today is my first day off since starting back at work. Each day that I'm there, I remember how I used to do this every day for 5+ years. I feel so blessed that I am able to go back to help out for 6 weeks but I feel even more blessed that my real job is at home with my children.
I am reminded of how hard it was to drop my kids off each morning. I am reminded of how hard it was on my mother. I am reminded of how hard it was on my heart.
There's nothing easy about being a working mother. I respect those mothers in my life who work to provide for their family while wishing they could find a way to be home. I was that mother and I may be her again at some point in my life.
So I am going to try harder not to take the life that I live for granted. No amount of money could make up for me being away from my children all day. There is nothing I want to do more than be with them.
So Disneyland can wait. A new van and a bigger home can wait. We are too busy enjoying the every day things that make us the happiest and for me, that means family.

In other news, I turned the big 2-5 this past Sunday. I meant to do a fun post like last year but since it never happened, you can refer to the same video I took last year of my trampoline skillz. And if you do laugh at me, just don't tell me you did. ;)

I can do hard things...

I can do hard things...but it doesn't help when people are putting me down.

This post is not just for me personally but for many people whom I know have been put down when they are seriously doing the best they can.

When I became a stay at home mom, I quickly realized that the choice I had made to stay home was not an easy one. My kids are noisy, sticky, whiny, and I had to cook and clean on top of making sure they were taken care of. I soon realized that what my mother had been doing for my children years before that were not easy tasks.

But because I have been a working mother and a stay at home mother, I know they are both hard and I know I can do hard things!

I can remember back to those first few weeks I was home with my kids. I called my mom one stressful day and asked her how the heck she kept her house clean. She gave me some tips and we hung up the phone. About 20 minutes later, my mom showed up on my doorstep with cleaning supplies that I had told her I didn't yet have and she began to help me clean my home.

Since then, my mom has even once or twice stolen my house key (technically she owns the house I live in so I can't really get mad at her) and cleaned my house while I was out and she's even tried to deny it! ha!

My mom's funny that way.

So it makes me sad when I have friends saying they feel judged for their messy homes because my mom has taught me that a messy home is completely normal with small children running around.

Now that doesn't mean I don't try and keep my house clean but seriously, we live here. I could clean all day and there are still things that would be out of place. My kids play and eat. There are going to be dirty dishes and toys out of place. I just do my best and tell myself that the most important job right now is raising my children and giving them my attention.

Ok, so I didn't mean to take so much time on the clean house rant. But alas, I did and I believe everything I said and won't be erasing any of it. :)

Many times in my life, I have felt judged in so many other ways and the worst part is, I usually feel judged for things that I am 1. trying to work on already or 2. not really all that worried about.

I am overweight. This is just a fact. But talk to any PCOS sister of mine and you'll realize that losing weight is not easy without a lot of hard work. I go to the gym at least 4 times a week and that is about it right now. Eating healthy is not high on my priority list and even though it probably should be, my choices are mine.

It's hard to hear comments about your weight from people you love and start feeling totally inadequate.

Losing weight actually falls under both of the categories above for me. I am doing some things to work on it but I also love myself and am not all that worried about the size of my body. I'm a pretty darn great person and I have enough personality to fill a bigger body like mine. :)

 Losing weight is like looking up a steep hill and asking myself if I really want to start climbing it. I take it a little bit at a time and when I make a bad eating choice, I just try again the next meal. And I try and get myself to the gym as often as possible so I can have energy to keep up with my kids.
My mind is not as much worried about what I look like as much as how I feel on the inside.
So yes, when I tell myself I can do hard things and exercise, it hurts to feel put down when I'm trying really hard to build myself up.

Slightly unrelated but still kind of related, I have seen the things my PCOS friends go through and gosh darn it, I can sit here and tell you, we really can do hard things!

I really can do hard things.

Next subject:

I am a parent.

Parenting choices are a hot subject in life because many grandmothers, aunts, or random women feel like they know exactly what is right for our children. I don't mean to sound rude, especially if you are a grandmother, aunt, or random woman who has given unsolicited advice to someone you really love but seriously, can we all just take a minute and think before we speak? I can imagine in my mind a lot of different mothers I know. All of us have at least slightly different parenting styles but that doesn't really matter to me. I can imagine these wonderful mothers and if I asked myself whether they made parenting choices because they want to raise their children the best way they can, the answer would always be yes.

  So to all of you unsolicited advice givers out there, I know you probably mean well but just think about yourself in our situation. We are doing what we believe is the best way to raise our children and honestly, no two mothers really should be parenting the exact same way...because every child is different.
Heck, I don't even parent the two children that I have the same way.
I am hard on my kids when I need to be and I make sure and build up their confidence and self esteem as often as possible. But just because I do these two things does not mean that they are the same for both of my kids.
I deal with separate issues with my children daily.
My son is a hitter so I have to find consequences for him that may not be the same as his sister's.
My daughter is a sass talker so she has different consequences than her brother.

When my children make messes, I expect them to clean it up and if they aren't capable of cleaning it up, they sure as heck are going to be right next to me learning how to clean it up. Responsibility is something I strongly believe in.
I know many parents who don't believe that a 2 and 4 year old should have chores but that's what is great about being a parent. I get to raise my kids the way I feel is best and you get to raise your kids the way you feel is best! And in the process of it all, I hope we stop judging each other's choices and realizing that we are each making these choices because we love our children.

Have I ranted enough? Because I'm not quite done yet...but don't worry, I'm getting close.

The main point of this entire blog rant is kind of what I talked about back here. No one way to live life is right.
Whether it be a clean house, the way you look, the way you parent or really any other choices you make, they are right for you! And mine are right for me.

I love diversity. I love that we have different personalities and different looks and styles and even different opinions. I wish it was easier for everyone to embrace diversity, rather than think that only their certain choices would be best for every single person in the world.

Rant over.

And that's how Suze sees it.

Working Mom vs SAHM

Well, yesterday I went back to work. It isn't permanent but for two weeks, I will be a full time working mama.
I was excited and sad to say goodbye to my two little chicklets yesterday morning.
I really do love working for my dad. I love the people, the children, and the atmosphere. I even love the drama. :)
But I love my kids more. And I want to be with them more.
Yesterday went by so fast and I had such a good time at work but when I got home, it was especially nice to have two little people run and grab onto my legs and tell me they love me.
But my goodness, it took about 20 minutes for my stress levels to rise high above normal. The kids were wild and crazy and I was tired.

My dad jokingly asked me when I was going to come back to work full time (I must be pretty good at what I do) and I thought about it for a while that night.

Being at work isnt actually the hardest part of being a working mom. It was the coming home and not knowing what my kids' routine had been that day that was more stressful. I didn't know how much they had cried, laughed, gone to the bathroom, played outside, etc and I couldn't detect the moods they'd be in.

It was harder for me to be a mom when I hadnt been with them all day.

I never realized how much this is true. Today was the same. I came home, we had a great 20 minute reunion and then I was worn out and was counting down until bedtime.

I am so darn grateful for the opportunity I have to help out and go back to work when needed.

But my goodness, I am so grateful to be a stay at home mom every other week of the year. I have now fully experienced both sides and would have to say that I'd rather raise my kids every day of the year than work 9 hours a day and come home to them with only 1/4 of my regular energy.

The only other downfall to working has been the sadness of Miss Petey. This morning, she woke up before I went to work and said to me, "Mom, could you please snuggle with me before you go to work?" And right before I left, she said, "Wait! Just one more thing...I love you so much!" It melted my heart!

And that's how Suze sees it.

PS: I may not be around the blogging world much the next two weeks. Working full days, my sister getting married, and a trip to California (Hello, Disneyland!!!) are going to take precedence over my blog. But Ill stop by once in a while. :)