Hi Friends!
How is everyone’s first week of back to school going?! Ok.. so it might not be YOUR first week back to school, but for us here in Virginia Beach. The sounds of the school bus and smells of strongly brewed 6 am coffee are coming on strong over here!
I always loved this time as a kid and I love it even more now as an adult! Linc isn’t old enough yet to actually ride the bus and I know the day he is, I will absolutely cry my eyes out and be “that” mom that runs along side the school bus for as long as my pitiful lungs will let me! How embarrassing right?! Let’s be real for a moment though… Linc probably won’t ever ride the school bus! I never did, I was a walker so I don’t know what that experience is like!
Anyway, I love this time of year because as I’m driving Linc to his pre-school or walking the dog (or dragging and dying on a run that is seriously more like a shuffle) I love to see all the families and the little ones at the bus stops in the morning! I love how our neighborhood gathers. The mom’s come together with their coffee and all the dogs are waiting anxiously with their kids for one last lick goodbye! I just adore that community and that personal connection that is happening right outside my door. I actually long to be a part of it and hope that when it’s time for my little one to go off to “really big kid school” as he calls it, that I can join in and have that same community and connection that they share!
I think this is why I love these type of posts so much! I can actually share pieces of my heart and our real lives with you and feel like it’s a true conversation!
When we can let go of all our insecurities and drop the desire for “perfect”; we can truly share a different kind of connection! We can share something that we all crave as humans: the desire to know someone’s heart and understand their story! We can laugh with one another and realize we are all connected in some way and that through listening to one another and sharing our hearts, we can truly change one another!
In this spirit of that connection, I’m going to bring BACK a series that I had every intention of starting back in April! That’s a super long time ago, right?!
I started it, I rolled with the first one and then, to be completely honest, I forgot! I got caught up in life and projects and big dreams and this one post (a small post) that actually is at the very core and heart of who I am as a mom and who I am as a business owner, was forgotten! Bring on the hash tag… EPIC FAIL!
This is where it gets really good friends: there is no failing! I’m going to repeat that… there really is no failing here because as long as we are trying our best and we continue to recognize where we may have made a mis-step and pick it back up, we get back on the right track to hash tag… winning!
So I will start again and this time it will be better!
This time I want to create a real place for me to share with you all of our imperfect moments! A place where I hope, that as a fellow momma you can say… oh man, yep that’s totally happened to us too! I hope you find an experience here where you feel like shouting, YES I thought it was just my kiddo but thank gosh we are normal (because good gosh, I feel that everyday haha)
A place where maybe, you might feel brave enough to share your own experience or two!
This is my Real Mom Moments Series and if you want to read the first one I wrote back in april.. it’s right here: Real Mom Moments for Real Moms who want to share a community
So what’s been going on with us lately…
Real Mom Moments:
- The joy of boys! I’m not sure if it’s JUST boys, in fact I’m pretty sure it’s all little ones at this amazing age of 3, at least I hope it is because I can’t be the only one enjoying the joy of nakedness at the most inappropriate times! OH ya’ll!! The best way for me to explain this is to tell you what happened this past Tuesday! My girlfriend Claire is a teacher (and woah thank goodness for that fact) so after her first day of school she decided to pop on by to say Hey and give Linc a little high five and hug! You see, Linc adores Claire and we’ve been enjoying “tuesday’s with Claire” this summer while she has been off. Soooo…. Claire comes over and Linc is outside playing with Tuck (it’s sprinkling a little) and I tap on the glass door to let him know, Claire’s here… HOORAY! I swear this kid is quicker than the flash because in NO TIME AT ALL we were watching him on one side of the pool and then BAM up against the glass door is my fully naked son, pressing his entire body to that glass window and blowing raspberries at Claire! I had no comment. I just stared. Happy First Day Miss Claire… and yes, our backyard is a tiny nudist colony!
- The three-nager status! All of a sudden it’s like we woke up one morning and Linc had all these new words and phrases that are sassy and angsty! He also sometimes sounds a whole lot like me but he’s repeating it back, at appropriate times, TO US! Man, I wish someone warned us about the three’s. We enjoyed the “terrible two’s.” They weren’t so terrible for us, but these three’s…. wowzers. I am often hearing myself say things like “we don’t speak to mommy that way” and then two seconds later my little parrot can be heard in his raspy, that’s not nice voice… “daddy you don’t speak to Lincoln that way!” Seriously, kid?! Our time out corner has become an MMA cage sometimes as we try “patiently” to walk him back time and time again! Yes, super nanny I understand your technique but are you sure it works for every kid?! Yet, there are times when he can be so thoughtful and so sweet and so charming… and those times are often smashed right together! Sometimes I do feel like we are all very mad here! It’s hard not to laugh at times I should be serious and the end of the day the “I’m so tired” meltdowns are my favorite! I have a little journal I keep to write special moments in and find myself creating a novel so far as we enjoy the three-nager status!
- HIBACHI NIGHT! This was awesome! We took Linc to hibachi dinner with my brother and sister in law and niece and nephew a while back. It was fantastic and Linc adored it, so we thought for sure this was something we could do on repeat! We took him out the other night to celebrate school with our neighbors and it was an amazing mess of everything that parenting is with really little ones! We went early so it wouldn’t be crowded and yet still there was one family there with older kids that clearly didn’t appreciate the entertainment we brought! Linc and my girlfriends daughter A who is the same age, they just adore each other so until we began rolling with our food, these two just wanted to giggle and snicker and hug and hold hands (sometimes lick each other’s faces!) It was actually adorable, kind of like a date to be honest but you know 3 year olds, their inside voice level is set to 8 and that’s the normal range! We finally brought out all the electronic devices we could find! Linc had his kindle that he was “sharing” with A. A had Tuck’s phone that she was sort of “sharing” with Linc (because you know 3 year old’s, they love to share but THEY want to be the one to hold it!) M had his mom’s phone and of course all of them were looking at the same app. I was dying laughing because I remember that time when I wasn’t a mom yet and I was so judgy and I thought… I will never let my kids have a kindle or an ipad! BAHHH see ya sucker, you wouldn’t survive a day! We were able to chat and have a great time but of course the one part that Linc was looking forward to the entire car ride there, the volcano fire, we had to take him out because he was crying! He was terrified, so we sat and marveled at the fish the whole time the chef prepared our meal! In the end, the kids ate a great meal and they were extremely well behaved for a full day of school plus a special dinner! What makes me laugh is the looks we get from parents that have teenagers when my little on puts his chopsticks in his ears and giggles or he gets up to give someone a kiss on the other side of the table! Yep it’s awkward but you were there once before friend, take a moment to remember and practice a little grace!
- Daddy’s toothbrush! I won’t go in to detail on this because honestly I don’t know the full story, and I really don’t want to! Tuck came upstairs in a bit of a mood and declared that we both needed new toothbrushes for the downstairs bathroom! I guess Linc had decided to practice his aim with them… maybe he stirred the pot, I don’t know! I didn’t ask, I just let it drop at that one little fact: “Linc peed on my toothbrush.. I think, I’m not sure!” When in doubt, just get a new one!
- This one is probably my personal favorite! I never thought in all my years of child development and child life that I would have a hard time explaining things to my own child. I’ve explained and taught children of all ages about a LOT of really crazy topics and there is always a way to explain something so that they understand and it’s pretty correct, without traumatizing anyone! Linc left me pretty tongue tied when he asked me to explain why our girl dog has so many nipples! It wasn’t such a bad conversation and it was going pretty well as I was teaching him about the puppies she had and how they eat etc. Then he threw me the whooper… so mommy, why do you have 2… it’s just me! Thanks kid… he then started asking about ALL of our friends nipples who have multiple kids. So I had to backtrack and explain that animals and dogs are different then people and that was like a flood gate for an entire anatomy conversation that I wasn’t prepared to have! We just shut it down with Tipper is made different than Mommy because that was God’s plan!
At the end of the day, I love it ALL! I love all these awkward moments and I love all the great moments. I even love (and cringe as I say it) the three-nager crazy pants meltdown moments because I know that at the end of the day it all happens so fast!
I love being a mom but I understand how necessary it is for me to be the kind of mom that I want to be for Linc, to share these stories and hear similar stories with other mom’s around me!
I LIVE FOR A COMMUNITY WITH MOM’S. I long for it and I need it in order to fuel my heart and stay my patience so that I can be the absolute BEST MOM that I want to be for Linc. Community and grace gives us the opportunity to give our best selves to our children and then let our guard down and let go with each other!
I need to be real! I need to let go of this rat race to be “perfect”.
I chose to be the best version of myself for this morning and this day! I chose to surround myself with other mamas who can lift me up and laugh with me at these crazy awkward moments and then put me in my place by sharing moments that totally trump them!
We need each other mommas! We need to come together and drop our masks and show off who we truly are!
If you’re with me, share a story today in the comment section! Give a little shout out and be brave!
Real is better than perfect friends, in so many ways! If we can embrace that, we can begin to change so much~!
