Monthly Archives: January 2014

Confessions of Potty Mouth Mommy

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I have a confession to make.  It probably isn’t a surprise to most people I know but it’s something I have been trying to avoid dealing with for several years.

I have a potty mouth.

I use very bad words on a daily basis.  You would have thought that after having children I would have cleaned up my language but I think it’s actually gotten worse.  Stress brings it out the most and as any parent knows, stress is magnified with children.

It’s to the point that my oldest will gasp when I say the word “stupid” and exclaim in horror that I said a bad word but I could drop the f-bomb and no one noticed.  Those were acceptable words in my house because they were uttered so often.

But I knew it would catch up to me eventually and now it has.  A couple of weeks ago my husband took the boys to the grocery store and the little guy told his brother to “Stop being an ass—–“.

Not good.

Then later that weekend I used a word that began with an “s” and it wasn’t “stupid”.  My older one looked at me and said, “That’s a bad word”.  I stared at him for a minute and replied, “Yes, you are right.  Mommy uses bad words and she needs to stop.  You will need to help me okay?”  He agreed

It is something that I knew would make it to my “habits” list.  I am not happy about my foul language.  I find it particularly interesting that I can turn it on and off.  I don’t swear with patients (thankfully!) but I mindlessly start using choice words with my friends, family and some colleagues.

So how to stop?  I wasn’t sure.  I thought of several ways to deter my potty mouth.  The whole “loonie in a jar” thing is not going to work for me.   I think the “punishment” needs to be severe.  This is an ingrained habit that will be hard for me to break.  So I thought of different things.  Maybe my kids could give me a time-out when I swear or maybe they get a ticket that they can redeem for something.  But I know myself well enough to know that those ideas will not prove to be incentive enough.

But I think I may have finally thought of something that will work.

My kids love to sleep in my bed when daddy’s away.  I hate having them in my bed.  I sleep alone.  I need my sleep and it has been a non-negotiable.  When I don’t sleep, I can’t function.  My symptoms get worse and I get clumsy.  I tolerate my husband on the other side of our king size bed because matrimonial customs insist on it.  I always tell the boys that I would do anything for them-but they can’t sleep in my bed.

So there it is.  Every time I swear and the boys catch me, I will give them a ticket.  When they have 5 tickets, they can redeem them for a night to sleep in my bed when my husband is away.

I think this will work.

For anyone else who is reading this, if you catch me swearing, call me out on it and I will buy you a tea.  It would be weird to let you sleep in my bed 🙂

 

My Mommy is a Potty Mouth!

 

 

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Every Candle Counts…

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Today I turn 39.  Every other year, birthdays have been bittersweet.  Another year older meant more wrinkles and even more grey hair.  But this year is different.  This year I am grateful to be celebrating another year.  Thankful for every new wrinkle and every grey hair because each wrinkle and grey hair measures giggles, squeals, smiles and inches in my children that weren’t there the year before.   They represent secrets with my husband and jokes with my brother, meals, laughter, tears and happiness with friends and family that never would have been experienced without growing a year older.

For some time now, I have tried to live my life with gratitude.  To count my blessings and be thankful for all that I have.  But never has that been truer than now.  This year, I am acutely aware of how precarious and unpredictable life can be.  Up until a few months ago, I stressed about normal things-contractors, deadlines, work, chores, kids and countless other mundane things.  Then, in November, my dear friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  She is 35 years old.  She has a 1-year old daughter whose eyes will turn you to mush.  And now, she is fighting the fight of her life.  How does that happen?  How do you go from being healthy, the world at your feet to scheduling chemo and surgery in the matter of hours and days?

And then yesterday, I had a new patient come in.  She is 50 years old.  She has had a neurological disorder for 15 years.  The same one as me.  For 10 of those years, she was well.  She worked, she walked, she mothered.  Just like me. Then, in the past 4 years, her health deteriorated.  She can now barely walk or talk.  I looked at this patient and saw my potential future.  That could happen to me.

I think to myself, count your blessings and live in the present.  I have had another year of walking, exercising, working, loving, laughing and playing with the kids.   I try to focus on the positive and continue to be grateful.

But then there are moments when it’s hard to be grateful.  Moments like this afternoon, when I was driving home, thinking about getting the kids to music class and hoping my husband doesn’t forget the cake (more for the kids’ sake than for mine), when it hit me-I miss my mom.  My mother passed away when she was 56 and I was 29.  This is my 10th birthday without her.  There are times like today when I feel her absence so deeply that I can’t breathe.  The sorrow overwhelms me.  It happens at random times.  Sometimes it will be while I am cooking and I think of something she used to say, or sometimes it will be while I am running and I can picture her smile.  She pops into my mind without warning and every time, I am left feeling a tightness in my throat and tears in my eyes.  To this day I can’t speak of her for more than 2 minutes without crying.  I am crying as I type this.  I feel such sadness that she never got to see where life took me, that she never got to meet my boys and most especially, that my boys will never know the love of a doting grandmother.

But then I try to remind myself that this is what life is about.  Life is sweeter when you have experienced death.  Health is more precious when you have faced illness.  Love is greater when you have lost.  The highs are so much higher when you have spent time wallowing in the lows.

So this year, instead of grumbling about getting older, I am thrilled to be celebrating another year lived, another year of health, another year of mothering and another year of endless joy, abundant laughter and immense blessings.  This year, I am putting all 39 candles on my cake to symbolize how much I appreciate every single one of those years, the good ones and the bad.

Happy Birthday to me.

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So another year begins….

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Like every other year I have made New Year’s Resolutions for 2014 but this year I am going to pursue them differently.  Instead of making a list and trying to tackle it all at once, I am going to continue to incorporate new habits, as I have been over the past 3 months, in 3-week increments. 

My strategy so far has been quite effective.  I am still brushing my teeth every night, drinking lots of water and avoiding my phone.  My newest habit of trying to stretch everyday didn’t quite work out.  For whatever reason, that has and continues to be a challenge.  I have been stretching more, but not consistently.  I guess that’s better than nothing but my concern is that unless it is a true habit, I will eventually stop doing it. 

As I have been reading more studies and information on habits, I have found that the research is actually showing that the time it takes for an action to become a habit depends on the complexity of it and of course, on the individual.  Though certain easier habits may take 21 days, others may take much longer to develop.  So I am not sure what to do about this one.  Do I keep trying to incorporate it or try again later?  Or move on to another habit and accept defeat? 

I have decided to keep it on the back burner for now, kind of in a holding pattern.  I will still try to stretch more frequently, but I am also going to try to start Hot Yoga again.   A friend of mine asked me about it and I think we will try to go weekly together.  Hopefully the buddy system will help me with this particular challenge.

I haven’t weighed myself either.  It’s been almost a month.  Perhaps avoiding the scale over the holidays wasn’t such a wise idea but I have to say that not being a slave to a number is proving to be quite liberating.  I will weigh myself next week and then I hope to only weigh myself weekly. My hope is that I will view the number that stares back at me with less emotion and angst.  I want to shift my goals away from a number to something else-maybe a long distance run or a certain number of push-ups.

So what to do next?  I have several habits I want to incorporate but seeing as I have spent the last 2 weeks at home getting things somewhat tidied up and organized, I thought maybe I should continue with that. 

I have always found it particularly challenging to stay organized.   I am always losing things-my keys, my wallet, my sweater (I probably have close to 10 black cardigans because I keep misplacing one and then buying another one).  My husband, on the other hand, is very meticulous about putting things away and keeping things uncluttered.  I watch the calmness he exudes and long for it.  I never see him frantically looking for his keys as he leaves the house, or for his favorite pair of shoes as he gets dressed.  I want to be more like that. 

So, I am going to take 10 minutes every day to try to put things away.  This means cleaning up my closet, putting my keys where they belong, filing the mail and generally decluttering.  

But I think there is more to being organized than just the act of tidying up.  There has to be a certain consciousness about it.  I watch my husband and how he puts things away with care.  He doesn’t throw his wallet on the kitchen table and then look for it, as it becomes buried under papers and knapsacks.  He makes it a point to put it where it belongs, in the space he has chosen for it.  I want to be like that.  I want it to come naturally. 

I am not sure if I will be able to be as well organized as he is.  He is a different breed than I am.  You know how they say opposites attract?  I think we are the flagship couple for that cliché.  My brain is wired differently than his.  My hope is that I will still be able to change my patterns a little bit by adding some consciousness to my everyday actions.  Afterall, that’s what this whole 20 habits in 60 weeks thing is about right? 

So here I go, into 2014 with my first new habit of the year.  53 weeks and 15 habits left to building my better life by 40.