Mommyhood through the years- School

I stopped by my daughter’s classroom this afternoon to see when a project was due.  The teacher told me a packet went home with all of the information.  I was honest and told her I didn’t read it.  If there’s something I need to know, she usually tells me.

This got me thinking.  When my oldest two daughters were in school, I read every single paper that came home, signed every single test, checked their binders every day and made their lunches the night before.  I remembered and went to every parent conference. I volunteered over 5,000 hours in three years, was the Volunteer Coordinator for a year and PTO president for two years.  I was under 30. I was an awesome mom.

The two younger kids came along when I was 30 and 33.  By the time the youngest went to kindergarten, I’d just survived a year with three kids at three different schools and my oldest was a senior in high school preparing to leave for college the following summer. Having a kindergartner and senior makes for a very emotional year. The first two years of my second go round having two kids in elementary school went pretty well.  I walked them to their classrooms every day, walked to pick them up after, remembered to sign binders 85% of the time and made sure their “buddies” checked their binders (when you have four kids with a seven year break in the middle, you learn to assign buddies to make sure no one gets lost and is fully dressed before leaving the house).  I was under 40. I was a pretty good mom.

I realized today, that I’ve gotten lazy with the younger two.  My son is homeschooled so I kinda have to know how he’s doing.  Thankfully there are no papers or binders to sign, no report cards or parent conferences.  My youngest daughter is 10 and headed to middle school next year (WTF?!?!?!).  I can’t remember the last time I checked her backpack, signed her binder, looked at her report card (unless glancing over it while driving counts).  But she gets her stuff done on time and like her teacher pointed out after my confession, at least she’ll be independent.  I’m over 40.  I’m an okay mom.

I know they love each other

My babies went to sleep tonight with tears in their eyes. I know they love each other but they are just so different. They want to spend time together but are both so hard-headed. They want to get along but just don’t understand each other.

As a parent, I don’t know what to do. I listened as they each told their side of the story. I watched the tears roll down their faces, one feeling bad she’d ruined the movie, the other feeling his sister ruined everything. Then I got frustrated and told them that they could enjoy the summer sitting in their rooms.

They feel that they are too different so they can’t get along. I feel that I’ve failed to teach them to compromise. I talked with both about being the bigger person. Maybe they need a project to work on together. Round 2 involved more tears and more blame, “She always….” “He always….” So I told them, separately, that tomorrow they would help each other clean their rooms. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I just checked on my 2 sleeping babies. I know they love each other. I’ve tried to explain that fighting over a movie is trivial. I want to tell them that people are being shot, blown up and killed in freak accidents every day. I want to remind them that every minute is precious and they should make the most of it. But I want to retain their innocence as long as possible, so I say nothing except, “I love you very much.”

Tomorrow is a new day. All I can hope is that all will be forgiven and we can start anew. I will remind them that no matter what they go through in life, they will always have each other. I will tell them that being different is good. I will teach them again about compromising and about being compassionate.

I know my Littles love each other and I know that tomorrow they will find a common ground. They always do. I will have them read this post and know that we will all be thankful that we don’t have to watch Max and Ruby ever again. There is one thing that never lacks in our family- love and laughter. Yes, I know, that’s two things but they go together, hand in hand.

Parenting is hard and it never gets easier. No two days are ever the same. But I prefer it that way. It means life will never be monotonous and I can tell you that in my 22+ years of being a mom, not one day has been like another. People often ask how we raise 4 kids. I jokingly answer, “Drugs and alcohol.” But honestly, the more you have, the easier it gets. Tonight was a trying time but my beautiful babies are sleeping and will wake up tomorrow refreshed and ready for new arguments.  😉 I know they love each other and will find something in common to occupy themselves and hopefully not give me anymore grey hairs.

real fit MOM

If you haven’t read any of my other posts you may not realize that the title of my blog means that I am a real mom trying to get fit. I am not an already got a 6 pack abs, blazing guns, tight ass and no thigh gap fit mom.

I’m a mom. My goal is to be fit. What you read is real.

I realized tonight that I’ve only ever talked about the fitness part. I’ve neglected the mom part of this journey. Afterall, it was my children who were the contributers of my extra weight. When I got married at 19 I weighed a whopping 103 lbs.

My dad’s favorite picture.

Five babies, a car accident, 22 years and 50 lbs later…..but this is about my kids. I’m going to brush over baby #2, Jacob, who had Trisomy 18 and passed away after 6 hours. It’s ok. 🙂

Meet my lovies-

These are my middles. They are the imaginative ones, the big hearted ones, the passionate, goofy ones. They keep us entertained with their variety of creativity and ability to talk in multiple accents. They are introverts and content with their technology.

My Littles. They keep me young. I had both of them after I was 30 despite my goal of wanting to be finished with having kids by the time I was 30. My poor son is the only boy with two older sisters and a baby sister. He’s named after his dad and is a spitting image of him. My baby is a dancer. She has a passion that is refreshing, mature and emotional. I cry every time I watch her dance. She’s extremely serious as a dancer but has a goofy side like her siblings.

My eldest. Who wants to hang out with their mom on their 21st birthday as they drink around the world at Epcot with their bff? My kid. Obviously she didn’t get her height from me. She was an absolutely horrific birth and I question my sanity for continuing to have four more babies after her. As she posted on my Facebook on Mother’s Day, we grew up together. She, like the baby, are our princesses. They are outgoing, social butterflies, energetic and love attention. They are our extroverts who enjoy being around lots of people.

Yeah, they make me proud.

My Girls. They couldn’t be more different. They fought so much growing up but have become much closer since #1 went to college. These were our test kids. Ha! You know, the trial ones where you screw up all the time trying to figure out this parenting stuff. God I’m proud of them. I couldn’t ask for a better set of kids to go through puberty, middle school, high school and adulthood. They made parenting easy.

My baby

My son

My teen daughter

My college daughter

And me

My amazing, smart, beautiful, crazy, hysterical, creative, warm, loving children.

They keep me real. They inspire me to be fit. They made me a mom.

**Yes they have a dad. Yes, he’s the father to all 4 despite the age gap (21,18,11,8). He doesn’t do social media so out of respect for him no photos of him are posted. I love that man with all of my being even though he can infuriate me to no end. He’s a great husband most of the time (I’m definitely not the perfect wife) and a sarcastic, funny, tempermental, caring, proud daddy.