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Friday, January 28, 2011

Kushies Magazine

Kushies Baby designs, manufactures and markets an innovative collection of quality baby products and accessories.  For more than 50 years, the company high qualities baby and children's products manufactured in Canada.  I love Kushies products and currently have their Bees Knees jeans for Baby C and the My Bag overnight bag.  (I will be reviewing both of these products over on Babes In Disneyland soon.)   

Kushies has introduced for their customers, a great resource and enjoyable read for new parents at www.kushiesmagazine.wordpress.com.  The monthly magazine provides information on nutrition and recipes, parenting, play, new product announcements from Kushies, health, product spotlights and community feedback.  Stop by and check it out!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Life with 3


I love having three kids. Baby C has definitely completed our family.  He rounds us out and brings so much joy and happiness every day.  There's nothing I love more the his smiling face looking up at me from his crib each morning.

My boys are a blessing.  They are sweet and loving and charming and smart and fun.  And with all that being said, I must admit that sometimes having three children is hard.  I mean really hard.  Harder than I ever imagined.  Ever since Baby C came into the picture, I have felt like I've been treading water.  My house is a mess.  A mess.  I forget important dates and events.  It's really tough for me to stay afloat.  Things like mailing a package at the post office or taking the time to find the perfect birthday gift for my husband (or even having the forethought to plan out a special day) feel like they are completely out of my reach.  My head feels like it's racing a million miles a minute all day long.

And there's the pressures of being a mom--scholastic, social, and personal.  A is in kindergarten.  Do I read with him enough?  Should I be overly concerned that he missed two on his addition homework?  B is in preschool and every mom there looks she just walked off the cover of Cookie magazine at the 9a.m. drop off.  Nice, right?  I look more like Shrek at that time.  And then there's sweet Baby C.  I still haven't gotten my sweet angel's Christmas pictures taken!  It's January 10 for goodness sakes!!!

Do you ever feel this way?  I know these times will pass and maybe I'm too hard on myself.  But there's time when it just feels like I can't be the mom and wife I want to be.

Friday, January 7, 2011

A Chance Encounter

It was an encounter that lasted five, maybe ten seconds max.  I was walking through the grocery store.  It was "one of those days."  I had been spit up on and wiped more butts than I would like to count.  I hadn't gotten a shower and now I was wrangling three boys at dinner time through the grocery store to get milk.  Why oh why must they put the milk in the back of the store?!

Like I said, the encounter was maybe ten seconds max but I think it hit us both like a ton of bricks.  She was walking toward me.  She had brown hair to her mid back.  She was think and pretty.  Her make-up looked amazing and she was wearing a fabulous skirt and sweater...maybe from Banana Republic...finished off with a great pair of heals.  She was in her early to mid 20s.  Our eyes met.  I looked at her and thought, "I used to be her!"  Truly.  It was like seeing myself ten years ago.  Confident and pulled together running through the market to grab one last ingredient for dinner after a day at the office, heals clicking on the supermarket floor as the cool lining of my skirt brushed against my fat-free thighs.  I was her.

And as our eyes met, I swear I saw a look of pity and then terror sweep her face.  I think she saw in me that we looked very similar--same build, hair, complexion, height--except for one major thing: I looked like I'd been run through the mill.  The boys were being outrageous.  The baby was whining...on the verge of a meltdown.  I was playing interference trying to make sure Fruit Loops didn't find their way into the cart and breaking up the game of who-can-hit-who-first.  As I read the look on her face she instantly pitied me, as it didn't take a psychology degree to figure out I was at my breaking point.  But then, I swear the look turned to terror...or at least fear.  Fear of becoming me in some crazy parallel universe.  I meekly smiled and she looked away.

I didn't see her again in the market but the brief encounter allowed me to reflect on how life changes without even knowing it.  I used to be that woman in the business clothes and clicking heals and in what feels like the blink of an eye, I am mommy.  And while it would be easy to mourn who I was in my 20s, I'm finding strength in the idea of how I will be reinvented in the next ten years.  Ten years from now, my oldest son will be 15 and I'm sure we will walk through the grocery store at dinner time to pick up the last minute essentials--only without tantrums and pleas for Fruit Loops and who-can-hit-who-first contests.  And I'm sure from time to time we'll run into mommies with little ones who are all haggard from the day's events and unknowing of the baby spit crusted in their hair.  I will see me in them and give them a smile and a nod and a "keep your chin up."

From that brief ten second encounter I have been reminded to embrace my current self, appreciate the past, and look forward to the future.  A lot can change in ten years.  I look forward to seeing where life takes me.