This is My Confession

Usher - an attractive R & B singer who is too young for me to really look at - but, my oh my .... has a song that discusses Confessions. While I will not admit the great appreciation I have for this young man - if I had a cool site his song would play in the background as you read this post. (His picture will disappear in a few days to save my dignity - but for now I have so few visitors - no harm, no harm.)

No, not my confession about some hot young man - my confessions about things I said I would never do and "mommy hacks" which was encouraged by the ladies at the carnival.

Well I Never. Oh, but I did, and I do.

1. Feed my children hot dogs as dinner food, and add fruit for a balanced "meal".

2. Justify cold pizza for breakfast to avoid getting a tardy at school, while telling the "gifted child" - look - you have protein, dairy, carbs and it is indeed a breakfast my dear.

3. Send my sons to retrieve sanitary products from a different bathroom in the house - by sending them on a search and find mission for peach plastic diaper pods. (Don't ask, I'm already ashamed.)

4. Eat off of my childrens plate. I will never consume half eaten food from someone else's plate said the woman I used to be. Until she encountered the woman that I am that cooked pot roast, green beans, tender baby carrots, cabbage and had 2/3 folks tell me that they would prefer something less spicy, less healthy, less vegetably, or some other word that doesn't sound like gratitude for my labor. (Refer to #1)

5. Play on the computer instead of engaging in some intellectual, esteem building activity with my children. A woman needs a break, okay.

6. Use a marker for interior decorating purposes. Need to correct a dent, chip in a picture frame, cover up that oddity on the stairs .... scrapbook supplies 101, or a good Sharpie I tell ya.

7. Threaten to spank my children in front of their class as an effective mechanism for asserting my role as an effective parent. (By the way - it did work)

8. Achieve clean counter tops for guests by taking a laundry basket and using my hand as a shovel. Yup. I love flylady and I love order, and I love - Rubbermaid. The blue handled basket with flexible sides does wonder for one's temporary dignity.

9. Cuss. As a Christian and a work in progress, I strive to set an example that my children will appreciate later in life. I work to be an active member of my community, neighborhood, church and workforce. I strive to be the person who leads, motivates and inspires. I cuss from time to time. Ask my children:

Infant girl age 2 some years ago, "What the hell, what the hell?" After stumbling upon some mess of toys on the floor.

Toddler boy age 3 a year ago, after my mother used a choice word in her kitchen. "Ass hole, Ass hole." And after I scolded my mother, she clarified, " I said ass, he added hole, and he didn't learn it here."

4 year old boy during a summer game, "Oh Shit." After things didn't go quite right.

I'm telling you, I said I would never. My house is not a potty mouth house, and you might even enjoy my hospitality. But, if we are confessing - tell the truth, and shame the devil. God already heard it anyway.

10. Pick a bogger out of child's nose with my finger because he couldn't blow it out - and I was tired of dealing with it. Yep, I did it. And...I drove home with it on my finger until I cried at the steering wheel and realized that I really needed more time out as an adult. A grown woman with a bogger.

So, maybe later I'll tell you what new uses I have come up with for everyday products, but my dignity (or lack thereof )has made me cease my writing for today.

Sigh................

The Thinker

The Thinker
Originally uploaded by allydsolutions.

DEEP REFLECTION AT ITS BEST

Together my husband and I have made many interesting collaborations - he's bricks and mortar, I'm more touchy feely. He wants to see economic development, I tend to look at economic empowerment. He would probably thrive in an urban environment with the fast pace of life serving as an energy source - the lights, the movement, the potential the development. I enjoy suburban life. I like the accessibility of things that are a part of our life, I like the relationships that my children are building, I like watching them play in the cul de sac, I like our home - which although a work in progress is as my father-in-law gently put it, "a real house." There are so many differences, I imagine they will fill our posts and our political exchanges in the blog world. Yet, what I always say in our heated exchanges (intense fellowship opportunities) - don't sell touchy feely short. I have made choices that are not typical for many of my peers. My educational achievements and professional pursuits are edited through the lense of motherhood - my chosen investment for a lifetime. I'm proud of all of the things that make me who I am - independent, fiercely opinionated, artsy, analytical, and a writer at heart. Conservative and compassionate, real. REAL.

However, in a world that sums up life by what you have and what you own we don't quite have our "American Dream" summed up. What I know for sure is that when opposites attract, wonderful things are possible. In fact, wondeful people are possible. Our youngest child was a surprise...well as much as married people can be surprised by pregnancy. He is such an addition to our lives and the perfect compliment to our expanding family. He captures the best of us and is equally reflective and energy laden on any average day. Most of his days are far from average. Deciding to be the primary caregiver for our children was not without financial implications, career implications and professional angst. When I look at his face, when I see his eyes, when all else seems to fall hard on the shoulders of choices deferred - I am elated to be a mother first, and all else follows from that decision. The thinker in my life tends to eat pizza for breakfast if I allow and waits too long before going to the potty, the most recent complication to our morning love fest. Our alone time is the source of many of my most hopeful moments and most peaceful experiences. Today, snuggled in the wee hours of the morning before any person in the house was awake - I realized the full potential of any day. Being up early, moving before the world has its privileges.

I imagine that this blog will mostly be an opportunity for reflection for me - a place to put the ideas that rush through my mind and heart each day. I want to have more discipline about writing and this will surely be a start. The possibility of dedication, discipline and desire must be endless. I hope it is - because these pages are the start of something new - a place where motherhood, being a wife, being a friend, being an entrepreneur and being a woman of substance meet.