29 Days of Love–Final Thoughts

I guess it’s redundant to tell you how much I love and adore my kids and AB – but it’s truth.  Still, as I told you, I struggled this month to express that love in tangible ways.  I thought this challenge was a no-brainer.  Do some fun stuff to show your love.  And some days it was easy and others, it was practically impossible.  Not what I hoped or expected!

Some days I was so bound up by the tantrums and the meltdowns and the running here and there and everywhere that is our life right now – that I just kind of slipped out of the mindset of showing love.  Frankly, I slipped into a more unhappy and not so loveable version of myself who we should just forget about.  Mmkay?

I’m not proud that I didn’t finish this month strong – honestly, I’m disappointed in myself.  I thought this was going to be such a fun one – and instead, life took over and February was gone before I could blink.  Still, I think putting the challenge before yourself and saying “I’m going to try to do this month different than all the other February’s I’ve had” – well, that’s still something.  And even if you only manage to do four or ten of those days – at least you tried.  Right?  Right?  Somebody?  Gulp. 

I’m hoping that you did better than I did.  That would actually make me really happy.  I’m hoping that someone out there really took the idea and ran with it!  I’m hoping that it jumpstarted for some of you, a feeling of love and displays of affection that in the busyness of life can be easy to let slip by.

As for Anton and I, we are really missing January’s challenge – and perhaps that has taken the wind out of February for us.  We really made some great changes with 30 Days of Nothing {Unhealthy}, and now it feels like it’s all slipping right back.  More for me and less for him – but still.  I keep thinking that we might have to do a “re-mix” of that challenge again this summer.  Still thinking about it…anyone up for that?

Come back tomorrow to see where we’re heading in March (the blog design will give it all away!) and to sign up for March’s “31 Days to KICK a Bad Habit”!

Meanwhile, back to the loves of my life…

  

  

     

March’s Challenge

Remember when we started these challenges, and I said “some months I’ll post a lot about them, and some months not so much”?  Well, February was clearly a “not so much” kinda month.  And frankly, March isn’t looking so hot either.  But I’ve never been about the “traffic” – so it just is what it is.  Sometimes I feel like I’m in seasons where the writings are just not coming to me – and other times, well, clearly they are.  I just try to be true to the moment.  That’s how we end up with posts like that last one.

Meanwhile, there is A LOT going on!  We are preparing ourselves for a wonderful trip next month, and those details will be revealed Thursday with my March layout!  Also, I need to introduce March’s Challenge to you:

This is a personal challenge.  If you have a bad habit you’ve been wanting to KICK to the curb, then maybe this is your month to make that happen.  Maybe you drink too much soda?  Maybe you smoke?  Maybe you’ve got a potty mouth?  Maybe you go to bed way too late, maybe you don’t exercise, maybe you bite your nails, maybe you watch too much TV or spend too much time on Facebook.  I could keep going, but you get it.  Maybe we ALL have things that could use a tune-up. 

The goal is to pick the one that you would like to work on for one month.  I want you to map out a plan for making this month effective.  Think out how your bad habits are affecting the other areas of your life.  If you spend too much time doing something, how does that impact your day?  If you cut your bad habit out, how will that free you up?  If your health is suffering from your bad habit – how can you incorporate healthier options in its place to see changes immediately? 

Here are three resource articles that you can use to motivate you and include great pointers on how to go about breaking a bad habit:

6 Tips – For Kicking Bad Habits

Tips for Breaking Bad Habits and Developing Good Habits

How to Break a Bad Habit for Good

I also want to go on record as having said: this is your own business.  I am not going to ask anyone to post about it, unless you want to.  And please do let me know if you are blogging about it, so I can ask others to follow along as well. 

Sometimes bad habits are just that: bad.  Bad for us, and sometimes bad for others.  The very nature of a bad habit can be embarrassing.  I don’t want this challenge to be embarrassing, I want it to be ENCOURAGING.  This week, I will talk about my own bad habit and try my darndest to KICK IT for March.  So be thinking about it – as we only have two more days before March is here. 

On another note: I’m so SO so stinking proud of the many of you who have joined us these past six months for the myriad of difficult challenges we have taken on.  I have received SO MANY e-mails about the progress and changes you have made and it has encouraged me WHOLEHEARTEDLY!  I am so BLESSED to have been even a small part in some of the changes that have been made in your lives.  What an incredible amount of things we have all accomplished since September!

More to come Thursday!

29 Days of Love & A Little Cup of Water

Can I tell you something?  Something I’m not necessarily fond of talking about, but that which I am recently overwhelmed by? 

29 Days of Love – it should be fairly easy, right?  I mean – show extra love to those you love for 29 days – how hard is that?  Well, actually – this month it feels kind of insurmountable.  Not because my heart is not overwhelmed and overflowing with love for my sweethearts – because IT IS.  But having said that – and meant it – I have to tell you, I’m having a hard time getting along with my little boy.  And that’s really a whole nother’ story – because I’m not going into the why…but I will say…

…every time I start to write a post – it’s all I want to talk about.  Girls night out this weekend?  Riddled with conversation about my confusion, my frustration, my angst…my longing…and still it wasn’t enough.  I’m still stuck there.  In that place of sadness.  Every time someone asks me how I am?  Diarrhea of the mouth about Q and our struggles.

He is a wonderful boy.  A charming, strong-willed, loving, SPITFIRE, beautiful, outrageous, amazing, infuriating, wonderful boy.  And I am in love with him.  I want to put him in my lap and whisper words of love and adoration, and I want that to solve all of it.  But it’s not going to happen.  That is, I’m going to continue to pull him in my lap and whisper my love for him – and we’re still going to wake up each day and wonder how we’re going to make it through.  And I’m finally realizing – I guess I’m naïve that way – that we could be, and likely are, going to deal with much of what we are going through now for many years to come.  Likely throughout his life.

I can’t tell you how sad that makes my heart.  How heavy that feels.  How if I could soak up every ounce of his struggles and take them onto my own person – I would never even blink with hesitation.  I would take every last drop. 

Instead, I’m just reminded that this is a long road.  That Rome wasn’t built in a day.  That we have a tremendous journey ahead of us with Quint.  That as he grows, new issues seem to arise – prolonging and changing the course ahead.  Like new chapters written into a story that I thought I had already written the entire plot for.  And nothing to be done but forge ahead into the unknown and hope that the ending still looks as beautiful as the one I had planned on. 

As I put him to bed the other night,  I was at first frustrated by his typical “antics” – his stall tactics and his many requests.  But as I stood in the dark of his room – hovering over him while he sipped at a cup of water – waiting in my exhaustion from the day for him to “release me” – I was overcome.  I felt the years moving away from me, and I felt him aging – as if before my eyes.  I saw him grown and gone.  I saw him on his own.  As a man and no longer in need of these trivial little things – like a cup of water from his mama, late at night.  No longer in need of me – not like this.  No longer needing me for all of his comfort, small and great.  For his reassurance in the midst of the storm.  For his goodnight and his cup of water.  I very clearly and fleetingly saw that this time with him was in fact the shortest possible amount of time and how easily it could be squandered.  I heard the many voices of my motherhood who have gently reminded me how fast they are gone from you.  I heard them and I listened – and truly – it was as if time was still for a moment while I watched him sitting up in his bed – drinking that small cup of water in all of his four years and two months and a couple days.

I was overwhelmed with love for him.  And for the fact that I knew in the blink of an eye, this would be no more; my opportunity to give him what he needs and to be who he needs. 

And I don’t know how to tell you this other than to say, that in the midst of my great frustration in that moment  - I also felt true and pure regret.  Regret because I would waste even a day languishing in complaint about where we seem to be stuck with our sweet boy.  Regret that as sure as yesterday came and went, he was a baby in a crib in that same exact spot – cooing and looking up at me with those enormous brown eyes…as sure as he was a 2 year old in his “toddler bed” and so proud of himself for crawling in and out…as sure as I tucked him in after that drink of water, planting yet another kiss on his little cheek – my four year old – tomorrow he would be gone from us…to have his own life and his own family…and would not need nearly as much from me.  Or that his needs would be so very different.  And regretting that I seemed incapable of appreciating the hills AND the valleys of my days being his mother.

So I’m stuck there a bit.  In the day to day – so frustrated….so tired….so spent from dealing with whatever is the latest in a long stream of complications with Quint.  In the nighttime, trying to sleep – but filled with regret.  That it wasn’t as it should have been today. That I could have done better.  That I should have given more of myself to him.  That I should have tried much harder to reach him or reach out to him.  That I’m failing him – somehow, someway.  That I’m missing it.  And that in the years to come I will weep for the days when he called to me in the night and asked for a cup of water and another hug and kiss.  How I will long for those moment with sad tears…and cherish them so much more than I seem to be capable of now. 

The years slip by, and I am distraught to lose them.  I am sad to see them go – because they are taking opportunities with them.  For me to do better at being his mom.  For me to have better understanding of who he is and why.  For me to love him better, because I can’t possibly love him more.  For me to grow up and for him to stay as he is until I do. 

In the meantime, I’m fighting my own will every day.  Not to love him because that is like breathing for me - natural and easy…but to genuinely cherish him – all of who he is  - day to day.  To cherish him.  The difficulties, hardships, joy, and the sweetest moments.  Knowing that there will be a time – in what will feel like a blink…when I will truly long for the days of fetching him a little cup of water and feeling those little hands pressed against my back. 

I already miss them…and they haven’t even left…

Love your babies, friends.

29 Days of Love–Happy Valentines Day!!!

Please, oh please…do something mushy for those you love…life is too short to wish you had…