adoption

The baby wait/weight …

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Weight-Scale

Yes it’s been years since we were in the waiting stage to become parents on our journey to parenthood, and yes our girls are now 8 and 6 years old. But I am still struggling with the Baby Wait/Weight. The weight I gained while on hormones and then being home while waiting and having food at the ready.

Excuse 1,000,000,000 now that our lives are in the fast lane with school for each girl, after school activities and more our dinners at times are whatever the quickest to throw together can be.  Not the best way to eat nutritious I agree.

All of this comes on the heels of a comment our older daughter made to me over the summer. She told me I was not able to sit on a porch swing because I was too big.  It hurt my heart like no other thing someone could say to me.  At her age she wasn’t calling me out as fat, she was saying it as she saw it, I am a big girl and that’s what she knows.  After my tears and conversations with my husband I realized there was no malice in her words just the plain facts.  This told me I was not happy with who I was in the skin I’m in.  I will not wallow in self pity I will do something about it and now is that time.

I will be 51 years old later this year and if I plan to be around for the many years I intend to see our girls grow and flourish I need to take a stand now on my wait/weight!

By writing about this and sharing publicly I feel I will need to follow through.  This is not a quick fix.  This needs to be a lifestyle change for me.  With the start of the school year my girls and I have been walking to school each and every morning.  Now I need to layer on more exercise and so it’s time for me to take out the leash for our 1 year old Weimaraner and hit the trails.

Both of our girls are naturally thin in this stage of their lives.  I don’t want them to feel the focus I have on my body image. I recently viewed the Dove #feelbeautiful  video about the legacy we pass onto our children regarding body image Dove Legacy . We’ve always prided ourselves that our children would know when they were properly full and stop eating.  From toddlers to now they do not overeat and we keep healthier snacks available to them and the other types of food are not forbidden but not our first choice.

It’s safe to say I have fallen off the good eating wagon and need to get all of us back on to provide a healthier environment in our own home.  I need to practice what I preach to our girls about fruit first when looking for a snack.

I have signed up for a 5K in June of 2015 to give me incentive to bring back the old me that walked 4 miles 3x a week.  The old me that didn’t eat carbs all the time and was healthier.  The baby wait/weight is just an excuse now I realize that.

So now I’ve put it out there in the universe, I will do something about the baby weight/wait!

 

Stay at home Mom …

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By definition;

A housewife is a woman whose main occupation is running or managing the family’s home—caring for and educating her children, cooking and storing food, buying goods the family needs in day to day life, cleaning and maintaining the home,  etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay_at_home_mom

This definition a bit outdated, but still the basis of what people think a stay at home mom is. On the other hand there is the comic picture I included which is how I think a lot of people envision the day of a stay at home mom…so not true!

There was a time that I was a career girl and I liked my jobs in the Fashion/Retail industry.  I worked for over 20 years in different capacities in the field.  Finally during our family building trials and tribulations I quit my job to focus on starting a family. That was over 10 years ago. People know me now as my girl’s mom.  They don’t necessarily know I lived and worked in New York City and that I lived and worked in San Francisco for many years.  I traveled a lot for work to a lot of cities and states even some I might not necessarily have visited had it not been for business.  I even had travel overseas for one of my jobs.

My current job description is Boo boo kisser, referee, menu planner, cook, chauffeur, homework helper, nurse, friend, wife, mommy, dog walker, recreational planner, vacation planner, food shopper, laundress, house cleaner, flower gardener, late night soother, CEO & President of our family Enterprise!

This is the first year both of my girls are in a full day of school.  This is the first year I have almost 6 hours in a weekday to fill.  With that I am at our girls’ school many days and there I’m known to help out in their classrooms, for field trips, special projects and PTA. I am also chairing the largest fund-raiser for our school ~ the Spring Gala.   Then there are their extra curricular activities.  I am a girl scout leader for each of my girls’ troops.  I am their taxi to and from ballet lessons and to and from play dates..  I put in much time and effort in doing all of these things for my girls, for their school and for their friends.

I consider myself lucky that I have been able to stay at home all these years.  It’s not been easy. We are on a strict budget (that I always go over, thank you amazon.com).  Both my husband and I grew up with each of our mom’s being at home and it was important to us that we try to give our girls this too.  There are days that I wonder was I cut out for this or should I be working again now that our youngest is in first grade.  There are times I hear my girls excitement that their Daddy is off of work and that is extra special time to spend together.  I feel pains when I hear them so excited for their Daddy and when I ask aren’t they excited for me too? they tell me we see you all the time! I wonder do my girls take for granted that I am always there for them?

Then there are the times I do feel the difference of not working at an office or for a company. This is usually when I am together with friends who do work and have that part of their lives. Yet I am lucky that there are a group of moms who too are stay at home and we can complain together and share the stressors of our days.  Other times someone slips and says something about being a working mom and passively putting down a stay at home mom.  Maybe it’s jealousy or maybe they don’t know how busy my day really is and think of the woman in the comic above?

In the end this was a choice we made and one I am happy to do on most days.  Don’t get me wrong it’s not always easy but I think in the end it’s worth it.  I say to those who can’t see the value in all that we stay at home moms contribute to our community, we do and that’s what matters!

 

can differences divide?

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divided_highway_ahead

This summer our girls attended Girl Scout day camp.  This was their 3rd year there.  It is a great full-day camp that runs for 9 days in the hills of Berkeley in Tilden Park.  What was especially nice this summer, is at this camp our girls can reconnect with some of their friends from the town we used to live and moved from over a year ago.

It’s taken me a bit to digest the first week of this summer camp and why I’m sharing now in late September.

It was quite a surprise when it happened, the differences that were making a GREAT divide.  You see my eldest daughter was reunited with most of the girls from her previous Girl Scout troop at camp something she really looked forward to.  This was a troop that had started in kindergarten and one we were part of through part of 2nd grade even after we had moved.  So both she and I were caught off guard with the questions one of our friends was asking, almost taunting both my daughter and I about.  “Are you adopted?” she asked each of us, first A during the camp day and then me at pick up “Isn’t A adopted?”.  I could see A was upset at pick up and realized as soon as I was approached by this girl that that may be the reason.  You see our family was built through adoption and we make no secret about it and this girl having been part of our circle of friends knew this.  So I pressed her what was her sudden interest, was there something she wanted to know about how we became a family?, who all our family was? why was she taunting us as she asked?

At 8 years old, A can choose who and what she shares about our family story.  She knows how our family was built, she knows and has ongoing relationships with ALL her family.  She chooses at this age not to always talk about it.  Our story is not a secret but a private family matter.  So being questioned like this was upsetting to her and me. Furthermore, this girl went on to tell everyone in their group at camp.  That truly was the most upsetting part.  Who was she to retell A’s story?  What did she get from telling the other girls?   Why did she feel this need to make A feel different from the group?  This was not very Girl Scout like for sure.  Her actions were creating differences that ultimately could divide the group and we still had many days of camp left to go.

When I was approached by this girl, my daughter’s friend, I asked her why? why was she asking this day?  Was there something she really wanted to know?  I am happy to explain more about our family make up and use it as an educational moment, but that didn’t seem to be what she wanted.

I wanted this to stop.  No one should try to divide a group and make anyone feel different.  I asked A if I could call her friend’s mother to let her know what was going on.  She agreed that it would be ok.  I did make the call, I did explain all that I had tried to share with her daughter trying to make it a positive by turning it into an educational moment about how families can be made differently.  She apologized for her daughter but her daughter never apologized to either of us.

This incident left me wondering, was this the start of others looking at our family so differently that they wanted us to feel that way, to divide us from others? Then I thought how do we better prepare our daughters for this?  How do we protect their hearts when someone is asking with the type of intent that hurts?

to lose a grandmother …

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grandma mac 2012

The other day we learned Grandma Mac had passed away, our girls have lost one of their loving Grandmas and Tim and I have lost a wonderful woman who treated and loved us like one of her own.

We became part of their clan when our oldest was entrusted to us at her birth. I will miss the calls I would get from Grandma Mac just to talk and pass on some parenting advice, we will ALL miss her terribly.

Telling our girls was the hardest part of this day.  This is the second grandparent to die in their young lifetime.

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This poem helps our girls know that they have not lost their Grandma forever that she lives in our hearts and when she is thinking of us you might find a penny from her letting you know she is around.