Feel Free to Share!

Hey! Just a quick post here to thank you for the positive feedback.  I wasn't sure what people would think about this, but I am thankful you are enjoying it!  I just want you all to know that you can feel free to share this blog with anyone you think would enjoy it!  I think it is important for each and every person to know that they aren't alone in anything, and I have found that many of you have gone through or are going through the same things as me.  So if you know someone who you think would like to read this, please share!  Thanks to those who keep reading!

Resolution

This year, I decided that for my resolution, I would start doing the things I love more often.  I used to play piano all the time and write music, and I used to draw and paint.  I figure it's time to start up again.

Writing on here will hopefully warm me up for writing music again.  In and English class that I took in high school, we would always begin by writing for ten minutes.  It didn't have to be anything in particular.  We only had to keep our pens moving.  We could write lyrics to our favourite song, a to-do list, our own poetry, or what I used it for: a diary.

I wrote everything I was ever feeling in that journal.  There are days where I wrote so happily in neat writing about an event I was looking forward to, and there were days where I would scribble awful things about whatever was making me upset.  Then, when it came time to do a creative writing project, I could look back into my journal and gather ideas.

Our teacher promised not to read anything we had written, but at the end of the term, we would have to show her our journal, and she would flip through just to make sure we were actually using that ten minutes every day to write something down.

I'm hoping now that I have begun writing again, that it will influence my song-writing.  I used to only write about depressing things in my teen angst.  I would either empathise with what others went through and write about that, or I would write about things that I was going through but amplify the sadness.  I found it much easier to rhyme with words like dead, cold, blood, and hate than rhyming with happier words.

I've never been much of a romantic, so I find it really difficult to write about love and happiness poetically. However, it is what I feel now.

This blog is the first step to doing what I love again.  I love to write.  It gets my brain working in ways nothing else does.  It constantly challenges me to be creative (whether it be in words I choose, or just what I write about), and it lets me share things I feel with others who care to read my work.

I'm hoping to one day read through what I have written and have something jump out at me to use in song lyrics.  For now, I'll keep exercising my mind, and enjoying this.  I'll hopefully get a few sketches in every once in a while when I have downtime, and soon I'll be writing music again.

I think it is so important not to lose who you were before you had children.  I have felt absolutely lost without a way to be creative.  I've even done silly things like cutting Jude's perogies and placing them on a plate to look like a pointsetta at Christmas time.  But, I guess whatever I can use as a canvas will be fine for now.  Be it perogies, or an actual canvas.  Now, just to find the time...

Break Time!

I am wondering how many other moms out there can't leave their kids.  I can't.  It's not because I worry about them, or because I think they'll be so sad without me.  It is honestly because I don't know what I would do without them.  They are the coolest people I know.  If I make any plans to leave without them for even twenty minutes, as I'm walking out the door, I will often change my mind.

Even if we made plans ahead of time for Jude to stay at my mom and dad's, I wouldn't want to leave him there (a good example is when I really wanted him to come with when we were about to have Murphy).  There are days where I would give anything for a break, but then when I get the opportunity, and I have to say bye to my little guys, I will give up the break I could have.

No matter how many things drive me crazy at home with my crazy toddler, and my little baby, I just can't stay away.  As much as I want to get away from my job that never has a lunch break or coffee time, and even though I'm still on call in the middle of the night when someone is hungry, or had a bad dream, I don't think I could ever leave them for any amount of time.  Maybe one day, but I'll probably take them with...

Get a Life? Got One.

Yesterday, when Wade came home from work, I told him that I started a blog.  He replied with, "Cool! What's it about?  The life of a young mother?"  I was sure he must have saw what I had named this blog when he was behind me as I was on the computer.  He told me he didn't see what I wrote, but said, "What else would you blog about?"

Initially, I took this as offensive.  I'm not sure why.  I showed him my best sad face, and said to him, "I don't have a life".

"Yes you do!" He told me.  "I just know what it is."

It's easy to put yourself down as a mom.  It can sometime feel like what you do is useless, boring, and like you should be doing more.  Since I am a stay-at-home mom, I feel this to the extreme.  I know many other mothers who are going to school or taking online courses, who have jobs, and can still keep their house clean.  When I think of them, I feel like I may not be enough.  It's too easy to compare myself to others.

I try to make myself feel better by telling myself that I have a husband who has a job that gets us by, and if I worked, we would have to pay for child-care.  Also, I have a six month old who still needs me at home.  I still feel like people think little of me.

I've visited with people who talk down about people who still live in Outlook because it must mean they made bad choices, but little do they know that some of those people have started their own businesses, or have their own house, or are saving up to move.  A friend of mine said that "maybe it was time (insert name here) moved to the city." implying that a small town was no good for them.  I like living here because I know that it's a pretty nice place to raise my kids.

I know many people my age are at university.  They are studying to become great things.  Good for them.  Maybe that wasn't for me.  However, just like some of them might become something great, others may not.  For example, one of them may become a beloved teacher to many, and others might not have their heart in it and do a poor job.

I know my heart is in everything I do to the maximum.   What I want in my life right now is to be the best mom that I can be.  No, it's not a paying job.  I can't get a promotion.  I screw up a lot, but I always try to be better.  I found something I care about, and  I'm okay with spending my life doing this.

My friends may go on to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, and anything else under the sun, and they might become parents on top of that.  I hope they do.  Maybe, eventually I will become something more, but for now, doing what I love and striving to be better every day is enough for me to live for.  I have a life,  and it's great.

Back in the Dating Game

I know I mentioned in the last post that I am married.  It's true.  I am happily married.  However, I am back in the dating game, but it is a whole different game than before!

I'm talking about making "mommy-friends".  Unless your best friend from high school has had a baby, or you're in a group for young moms, you probably know what I'm talking about.  It's awkward.  It's uncomfortable.  It makes you self-concious, and it is NOTHING like making friends in school.  When I made friends in school, we were usually in the same grade, and most likely in the same classes.  We all had a lot in common.  Now, in the "real world" when I'm trying to make friends, there are the moms who still want to party all the time, there are the ones who are single parents and busy with juggling work, and their kids, and there are the ones who are MUCH older than me who are successful, and have successful husbands, and big houses, and nice vehicles, and dinner parties.

I never know where I'll fit in.  That is where the awkward "dating" comes into play.  I find myself asking "Will she like me?", "Will our kids get along?", "Am I not good enough to be her friend?", "Does she think I'm boring?", and many other questions as well.  Maybe I just worry to much.  Maybe I'm just shy.  But it is really hard to make friends as a mom.  I am very fortunate that I live in the same town as my mom, so I have someone to talk to about any concerns I have about parenting, but it would be nice to have others to hang out with.

I had another young mom in town ask me over for coffee and that meant the world to me.  I cried when I read the invitation on facebook haha.  I feel stupid admitting that, but I did.  I was impressed that maybe she noticed I was lonely.  When you're a young mom, you try to look as put together as possible.  You make sure you're kids are dressed nicely, and clean, and are well-fed.  You make sure you have your hair and makeup done (because you still have to look good.  You're young!), and you try to keep your house clean.  Lastly, whenever you're out, you slap a smile on your face, and when people ask you how you're doing, you say "good" (even if what you want to say is "I'm lonely.  Please hang out with me!").  

What I'm getting to, is maybe if we all stop pretending everything is great, we'll see when someone else needs a friend.  My challenge to all of you is to ask another mom over for coffee, or tea, or anything really.  Even if she's much older, or much younger.  You might make a new friend, and so might your kids.  You never know who is hiding how lonely they are!

A Little Nervous, but Here it Goes!

Hello!  Here goes my very first blog post!  I have barely written anything since high school, so I might be a little rusty, but I am looking forward to sharing my life with every one of you!

You'll be able to read about me in the "about me" part of this, but I might as well expand on it all to introduce myself.  I am twenty years old.  I have a husband (Wade) and two beautiful sons (Jude, 2 & Murphy 6 months). I was seventeen when I married my "high school sweetheart" (maybe I'm too young to use that term yet), as I was pregnant with our first son.  We were married on Valentines Day.  It was a small wedding with close family and friends.

We moved to Saskatoon, and lived there for the last six months of my pregnancy.  I hated it there.  I had only finished one semester of my grade twelve at school, and had to earn the rest of my credits at home.  All my friends were still in school, and too busy to visit, and Wade had already lived in Saskatoon for a while, so had his own group of friends.  I just tagged along wherever he went, and tried living a "grown-up" life among others who didn't have to grow up at all.

We lived in a little one-bedroom basement suite, and I found it hard adapting to being a house-wife.  It was also hard to get used to being alone all day while Wade was at work.  At school, lunch time was a time where I was surrounded by friends, and ate food made for me.  At home, I was in a dark little basement, at a table alone.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted.

A chain of unfortunate events lead us to moving back to my home town, and where Wade and I met, and where we were married.  It turned out to be a huge blessing in disguise.  Small towns were much cheaper to live in, and it was easier for Wade to find a job with so many connections around town.  We thought we had time to get settled, but at my last Dr. appointment, I was told my little Jude would be born.  It was exciting, but made the move even more stressful!

After Jude was born, I had lots of visitors, lots of baby gifts, and so many wall-posts on facebook.  Then everyone became distant.

This is why I decided to write a blog.  I know that if I open up and share things that I'm feeling, maybe others wont feel so alone.

I think it was normal for my friends to back off.  I might have done the same thing.   I wasn't like them any more.  I couldn't just drop whatever I was doing to go hang out, I wasn't applying at universities, and I always had a little "tag-a-long".  I'm sure they didn't know what to talk to me about.  They tried to visit every once in a while, but the honest truth is, they had more fun without me around.

I still wanted friends.  I should say, I still WANT friends.  I guess I still have some, and I never completely lost all of my high school friends.  They are still around, and just a text away, but our lives are still so different.  They are going to school and partying, and living a reasonably normal life, and I am at home watching cartoons with my boys, and changing diapers every few hours.  I hope they are doing well and are happy with where they are.  I know I'm happy.  I wouldn't change a thing!