Hey Hey, what do ya say?! Let’s take a vacay!

Ooooooohhhh, vacation.  As a child it was a fun family obligation.  Now vacation entails months of planning, saving and in my case dreading.  Considering our past experiences of packing up the Mad Mini-Van with all six of us and driving for hours to go work 10 times harder than I do on a typical day, I was very apprehensive of what was to come. 

First Trip to Florida- New born and 1 yr old with a stomach virus the entire way there.  I don’t believe I need to go any farther in this explanation.

Second Trip to Florida- 1 year old and 2 year old contained in their car seats with restlessness no amount of Dora the Explorer could quell.

The worst part was always the drive home.  Cranky kids with their cranky parents confined in a small silver casing for a millennium (or so it felt).

Brace yourself! I have a confession……

I WAS WRONG! WE CAN HAVE FUN ON VACATION!!!!!!

Through our latest vacation I have confirmed a long standing theory-

“If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”

(not my grammar, that really is how the saying goes).

 I was determined to be happy, live in the moment and have fun.  And if I couldn’t?  Fake it!  Some moments my faking was deserving of an Emmy, but we had fun darn-it!

Perhaps it was the ambiance of this-

Yes, I took that picture! We went to the happiest place on earth!  Here is a break down from each member of the Mad Mini-Van’s perspective:

Teenrager (15 yr old male often found with wildly unkempt hair ): 

  Not one for rainbows and butterflies but is quick to smart-a**’d comments at unappreciated times (typical teen eh?)  Not one for wake up calls before noon.  Not one to leave his bat cave of technology (aka- his room). He. Had. FUN!

My favorite comment from him?  After leaving Universal Studios late at night on a Monday he proclaims:

“This is the first Monday I have ever actually enjoyed!”

Yes, my husband and I gave ourselves a mental high-five

Tweenrager (11 yr old female that is convinced she is far older than 11):

Here lately she is adopting similar behavior as that of her brother, Teenrager.  The minute I walk through the door she makes a hastey retreat to her bedroom to work on being the next Taylor Swift. (I will admit, she is getting very good with her guitar!)
My favorite moment with her?

Her tears of anticipation while waiting to get on to her first roller coaster!  Tweenrager is typically very quiet and doesn't get worked up over anything.  

This moment was golden, and yes I plan to tell it to all of the boys she brings home for the rest of her life 

Diva Darling (5 year old female often found making even the calmest of moments as dramatic as she possibly can):

I would almost say she had the most fun out of all four of the mad-children.  Albeit her drama fueled meltdowns, demands of being carted around in a stroller and constantly reminding us all- "I'm hot. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I'm thirsty"  Other than that she embraced the entire trip with the same enthusiasm of those children you see on the Disney World commercials.  Her unusual height for a 5 year old was an added bonus, from which my favorite comment came during the middle of Space Mountain (roller coaster):

"I WANT THIS TO BE OVER!!!!!!"

followed by:

"NOOOOOOOOO, I DON'T WANT IT TO BE OVER!! LET'S DO IT AGAIN!"

Baby Boy (4 yr old male often found getting into mischief and then easily charming his way out of it):

Poor poor poor sweet baby boy.  He celebrated his birthday while we were on vacation, but unfortunately his height hasn't caught up to the amount of years he has been alive.  Just as we taught him to get on his "tippy toes" to meet height requirements (checked by Disney and Universal staff) it was time to come home.

My favorite comment from him:

"We are coming back when I get bigger... So those meanies will let me ride the rides!"

Don't have to ask me twice baby boy, I can't wait to go back!

Other highlights in pictures:

Baby boy turned 4!

 I got to meet the Gremlins! (well kinda...)

We took lots of self portraits while waiting

Jaws ate my kids.... At my request

We saw many live shows

Road Rides

We danced

And Finally the Light Parade!

 

My Daily Trip...

PLEASE NOTE! I have debated long and hard about posting this.  Not because I fear I may hurt someone's feelings, but because I don't want to fan this seemingly eternal flame.  But somehow I have decided it's a good enough idea to throw in my two cents.  So here it is, all about my daily trip-

 Monday-Friday I take the same trip.  I call it the "Working Mother's Guilt Trip". 

June Cleaver led the ideal life.  She lived, breathed and functioned solely for her family.  Her house was clean, she cooked every meal, tended to her husband's and children's every whim and always looked like a magazine cover. Heck,she even got to sleep in her own for goodness sakes! Many societal studies show that her character in "Leave it to Beaver" set the expectation of of middle class suburban wives.  They were to stay home and manage housework, child care and the needs of their husbands. This meant that working mothers were found in one of two places- 1) The Farm 2) The Street.

Although the television series ended in the 1960's the perception that "good mothers" must remain solely in the home and never enter the work force while their children are living in their homes continues to resound in our country to this day.  Log on to any website intended for mothers and you will see what I call the "Great, Never Ending, Toe Stomping Working Mom vs. S.A.H.M (stay at home mom) Debate".  Find an article reference this and scroll down to the comments section.  All I have EVER found is mud slinging from both sides, but as a working mother the type of comment that punches me in the gut, guilts me, makes me cherry-red faced mad and maybe a little crazy typically go like this-

"I wholeheartly believe any one can live on one income. IT CAN BE DONE! I have seen it done on very small incomes. I think it is down right selfish to have children and then pay someone else to raise them. Your child will spend more time at daycare than with you. who do you think is then teaching your child to walk, and talk, and you miss it all because you are at some job making that almighty dollar!"

                                                               Or

" (…) you learn to live within your means. Most people are infatuated with the latest and greatest material crap the world has to offer. Your kids would rather have you than a SUV and a big house."

                        And let's not leave out....

"I'd rather my kids be better off than put myself and my career first. Not every one gets a choice, but those who choose to work over staying at home are choosing themselves over their kids. If you don't want to raise your own kids, then don't have them!"

So, what they are saying is that I am a selfish, neglectful, narcissistic,  materialistic, keeping with the the Jones', rich woman who abandons her children while paying un-Godly amounts of money to people to raise my children for me while I live only for myself  in a mansion while driving a large SUV (pah!) all while damaging the children I never should have had beyond repair. Not only am I feeling below an inch tall now I am also on the look-out for Child Protective Services to come take my beautiful children from my undeserving custody!

Allow me to offer a sneak peek into my reality-  I have four children at various stages of life.  They each have their own needs, wants, hobbies and plans for their future.  I also have things in pairs- Two car notes, two mortgages and two student loans.  Living expenses, retirement savings, Christmas fund savings (where ya at elves?), medical bills, grocery bill (because of SIX mouths to feed this is a weekly bill), gas for those two vehicles, home maintenance, and on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on for forever it seems.  All of this is accomplished with out government assistance or assistance from our families (not knocking those who do utilize this aid, it is just not a reality for my family) with little to nothing left over each month.  Two incomes to feed the out going water-fall.  My husband and I are blessed to have successful careers and opportunities to provide for our family.  Would I like to stay at home and be there for my children more? OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is this a reality for my family? No.

My ideal day begins at
4:30am- I go to the gym before anyone misses me.
5:30- get in the shower as to avoid being counseled for foul body odor at work.
5:45 wake up Monster 1 and Monster 2 (The teen-rager and pre teen-rager luckily wake themselves via alarm clocks).
6:20- make sure the husband is out of bed.
6:45- pack lunches, brush Monster 1 and Monster 2's teeth, assure Monster 1 is wearing socks, perform the salon duty of styling Monster 1 and Monster 2's hair, find the perfect bow for Monster 1, check back-packs and try to get three children to the bus stop at:
6:50- and then speed off to drop off Monster 2 at daycare, where at 3.5 years of age baby boy still asks that I carry him into daycare like a baby and I happily oblige.  I hug, kiss, give words of encouragement for the day and try to leave <--- Repeat 6 times.
7:00- speed like a mad woman (in a mini-van) towards work (30 minute trip)

I work all day and then speed towards the daycare at 4:30 pm
5- Pick up Monster 1 and Monster2
5:30- Run errands
6:00- Cook dinner (or watch Hubby Hubs do it)
7:00- bath time
8:30- bed time

I don't like to brag, but I think I have this worked down to a science.  That is, when it actually goes according to this meticulous plan (on average 2 times a month).

The one thing you won't see on my face? Guilt.  But I do feel it in my heart every day.  I should be home teaching my children.  But how will we feed, clothe and provide for their desires (yep, those are important to kids as well)? I should be home cleaning.  But isn't that why I had the kids? (I kid, I kid..... Or am I?) 

My heart gets dropped off every morning, but my responsibility to provide for my family drives me to work. 


My point in this post?  No one can decide what is right for your family other than you, your significant other and the Man upstairs. No amount of mud slinging will justify the decisions you have made nor will the mud slinging make you look any better. 

So can we finally put out the fire behind this debate? 

Stepping By Choice

My journey to motherhood has not been an easy one and I promise if one tried to map that journey they would get lost and give up. Twist, turns, 180's and 360's this journey has been a roller coaster ride gone off the track.  I quit mapping and I won’t give up.  Being in my 20’s and telling people that I have four children 15, 11, 5 and 3 I am usually met with “But they’re not all yours are they?!” accompanied by a look of shock mixed with some disgust. Over the years my reactions have varied, in the beginning I used to get angry by others reactions.  I felt as though they were demeaning my family and trying to make me feel like less of a mother.  Now-a-days I like to gently put people in their place for rushing to such a quick judgment with a line such as- “Well, I was 11 when I had my oldest, but we have bounced back and I think I turned out well…. The jury is still out on the kid though…”  

For those who know me, NO I did not have a child at 11. At the young ages of 10 and 6 my oldest two became mine when they moved into my home, moved into my family and moved into my heart.

Did I give birth to them? No.

Am I trying to replace their mother? Nope, we are very different people.

Do I love them any less? No.  My love for them is different yet unconditional. 

When most women give birth they feel an instant feeling of love for their helpless little combination of chromosomes.  While other emotions change with that growing child, that instant feeling of love remains without choice and without alteration.  I am blessed enough to tell you that yes, I have felt this twice!  But there is another little less known type of motherly love; it is the love of choice.    I met these souls while dating their father and when I married their father I made the choice to love these children.   This is a choice I make every day. Raising children is not easy by any means.  Raising children that occasionally hold you accountable for everything they see wrong in their lives- beyond challenging.  As cliché as it is I tell myself every day “One day, they will thank me” (thank you to those who echo this sentiment daily!). One instant I swear up and down that they hate me and are out to get me and then in one split second, I see one of my mannerisms become theirs and it hits me “YOU ARE IMPACTING THEIR LIVES!!!” Good thing I work well under pressure!

  

I by no means get it right every day, but every day I try. They have taught me so much about how to live by example and what kind of parent I need to be.  As much as I want to teach them; they teach me.

I choose to ignore the social expectations of a family.

I choose to be present in their lives

I choose to ignore it when they don’t want me.

I choose to know them better than they think I do.

I choose to protect them, even when they don’t want me to.

I choose to make them responsible future citizens.

I choose to encourage them.

I choose to prepare them for the real world.

I choose to provide for them.

I choose to never give up on them.

I could not choose to give birth to them. But I choose to love them. 

Every single day, I choose to love them.

My Way to Weigh

I feel it in my gut (not to mention my butt), this is my tale about my fight with the scale.

 

I, Molly, was a fat kid.  I have no qualms with admitting to this or showing pictures (not here, not now) of my Jolly Molly roundness. The largest I remember being was high 100’s wearing a size 20 at 5’2.  No, not while pregnant, while in the 8^th grade.  As you can imagine this was not easy especially for a girl who already had nappy bangs from ear to ear (thanks mom).  But I don’t have a horror story of being picked on, not that I can remember anyways.  Unlike many children of the latest generation I adjusted my personality to my reality, not the other way around.  I did not try to be a pretty girl, I was a funny girl.  I did not try to be a popular girl, I was the nice girl.  I did not try to be a cheerleader, I was in band. I by no means was perfect… I was obnoxious, loud and lacked a filter from my brain to mouth (guilty of all three to this day).  I had a great family support system, friends and lived in a forgiving (albeit small) town.

The only thing this childhood experience has left me with is: The Fat Girl Complex

Defined by me as: “The constant nagging feeling in the back of the mind that you can be smaller and are larger than everyone around you”.  To this day you will not catch me in tight clothing (not comfortably anyways) and will often (ok, ok darn near ALL THE TIME) hear me talking about losing weight or needing to lose weight.  The only difference between my struggle and most mothers’ struggles is mine didn’t begin post baby (no, that was the decline of my bust), my struggle began in my early childhood. 

In my early years of High School I learned quite a bit about myself, but the key thing I learned was what was good for my body and what wasn’t.  While others were eating junk with little to no consequence to their waist lines I was learning and implementing what was necessary for me to reach and eventually maintain a healthy weight.  By my Junior year I was half the size I had been in Jr. High.  That was not easy and Lord knows my weight and size differed day to day.  Struggle then. Struggle now.  

Am I the largest lady you will see in Wal-Mart Sunday after church? No ma’am! Am I the fittest thing you will find on Facebook? No sir!  I fall right in between.  After giving birth to two children (I’m not getting into THAT weight gain), being happily married and knocking on 30’s door I continue to teeter from one end of the scale to the other.  What has changed is my attitude.  I have my days where I carefully count every calorie, gram of sugar and percentage of sodium that crosses my lips and then I have days where I mentally decide “SCREW IT! I am eating this ENTIRE bag of tortilla chips!!!” I have days that I get up before the crack of dawn and hit the gym and then I have days where I sleep until the last allowable second.

My weight fluctuates.  For example-

Christmas 2011: Thick thighs and a tire around my mid-section that could have saved Leonard DiCaprio on the Titanic.

Late February 2012 (yes, a mere two months later): Darn good if you ask me :)

 

What is my way to weigh? Diet and discipline until a goal is met. Live life for a few months.  Return to diet.

Disclaimer: Yes, this can be classified as Yo-Yo dieting, but allow me to assure you that at 5’7 I remain in a healthy weight range.  Now, return to your carrot sticks.