the mommy unwar

I'm sure you've all heard of "mommy wars". It seems to be a popular buzzword among parenting blogs or mommy blogs or whatever.
If not, it's basically the idea that you can feel judgment from other mothers that disagree with the choices you've made in childrearing, homekeeping, careerwise, ad nauseum. (People actually get pretty neurotic over the choice of fake vs real Christmas trees. Christmas. Trees. Let alone how you feed or diaper or if you vaccinate or circumcise your children. The world is insane. Anyway...)
When it comes to a mommy war, I concede defeat already. I humbly bow to your superior discipline skills, organizing skills, nutritious meals, exercise program, clean house, devotion schedule, sleep schedule, cleaning schedule, budget, patience, skill at doing fun things with your kids, chore charts that you adhere to religiously, meal plans that you work like a boss, etc.
I tend to live in a bubble and probably I'm a little lazy (or I AM lazy) so my world tends to feel small and for the most part simple if I can just remember to take it one day at a time instead of thinking of cramming years of learning and training and teaching my children all in a day. 
I know I keep repeating myself but parenting and, for us ladies in particular, mothering is a tough job. We're hard on ourselves because we want to do the best job possible. I get it, and I understand it. I also understand that none of us will ever be a PERFECT mother and be the one that "gets it all done". We just won't.
Sometimes I simplify my job as a mom down to two things: 1) Teach my children to love and honor God and 2) enjoy them.
That's really all I want - to look back and know that I relished the time they were here and I spent it teaching them about the Lord.
In the end, no one is likely to remember or care if you breastfed or bottle fed your kids or when they slept through the night or if you used cloth diapers, made all your child's baby food, made their birthday cakes and holiday outfits, except maybe you.
The point is I just want my family to have mercy with me when it comes down to the choices I made in raising them. They have seen me at my best and most certainly my worst - the times when I was exhausted, overwhelmed, sick, selfish, impatient, ungracious, thoughtless. And I just want them to know that through it all, I loved them dearly. That every minute of sleep I lost, or time to myself I lost or whatever else I thought I lost, was the smallest sacrifice I could make on their part and I would do it again. And again. And again. And again. Because sometimes I think I don't want my life anymore but I know it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
As we head into the new year, I want to share this quote that I just discovered and immediately loved:
"I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day:...so simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real."
Henry David Thoreau
You've got this, momma. Just let patience have her perfect work.
Best to you all in 2016. 

what must be done

I decided to break my unintentional blogging sabbatical after I realized it's been over 8 months since I last posted! Whaaa...
Needless to say, things have been busy around here. I have about 500 started and never typed blog posts up in my brain but this has been on my heart in the last few days.
We went out to eat with some friends last week, and the ladies got in a conversation about the more annoying side of motherhood. Kids that won't potty train, kids that continue to wet the bed when we consider them well past the age, the constant spills, the whining, the fighting, the struggle it is to train kids when it's easier to do things ourselves. There was a time not long ago when I had to either flush or clean the toilet off every single time I was in the bathroom. It drove me nuts.
All I could think about was the women out there who didn't have sand in the sheets all the time, bathrooms that stayed clean, carpet that didn't have purple crayon on it.
I've said it before (and I'll say it again) - motherhood is not for the faint of heart. But I think it's meant to be that way. It's not an art that can be perfected.
I found this quote and thought it was just perfect for where I'm at right now.
"Cease endlessly striving for what you want to do and learn to love what must be done." Goethe

Learn to love what must be done. 

Piles of laundry, cleaning a kitchen floor that will not stay clean for more than 5 minutes, washing and washing and washing the sheets again, patiently putting a band aid on yet another "wound" that will never bleed, dealing with a never ending mound of soggy beach towels and swimming suits, coming up with yet another snack for kids that seem to need to eat 12 hours a day...
I wouldn't trade my life with my littles right now for the most spotless house and all the time to myself and a cup of drink that is all mine. I just need to put my perspecticles on every now and then.
Besides then things like this happen:

 And you realize that when things are good, they are really oh sooooo good.

florida

Believe it or not, neither Jeremy nor I had ever been to Florida. I actually had no desire to go there for quite some time. Then I thought who was I decide that Florida was unworthy without a visit?

Also last winter being what it was, I was determined to go somewhere (anywhere! but Siberia) this winter.

 Does this airport guy look a little like "you people are insane but I'm being kind about it" or what?
I'll be honest. Traveling with kids makes me nervous, especially when we fly. You just never know how they'll do.
They did great on the way there in spite of an hour delay on the airplane. So good, in fact, the guy next to me leaned over near the end of the trip and told me that the kids were so well behaved, we must be "amazing parents". Yep, that's it.

 Feeling pretty cool in the Tahoe we rented.

 This guy was not so sure about the sand.

 Dunkin date with my favorite 4 year old. He thought it was pretty awesome.

 I dragged my family to this little Thai restaurant for supper on Valentine's Day. We all LOVE crab rangoon in this family, but alas, I have yet to get Jeremy excited about anything else on the menu. Me and my pad thai will have to just enjoy each other, I guess.

 Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa

 Snake petting - that's my girl. Her brother declined.

 Gotta love the "mom" face in this family picture on the safari ride at the zoo. 

We picked up Jeremy's mom after the zoo since she kindly offered to come down for a few days to help out with the kids. 

This left us with an evening for a leisurely romantic stroll along the beach.

 Busch Gardens, Tampa

 Hot pretzel date with my favorite 2 year old. Like mother, like daughter - carbs all the way, baby!

 America may not necessarily run on Dunkin but we kinda do. There were many DDs around and we stopped at...a few...

 Travel with a 9 month old.

 Since we made the romantic evening stroll, we also made a romantic morning stroll.

 And it was a cool morning, so we stopped at a cute little coffee shop for a hot drink. The couple that drinks coffee together, stays together, right? Or something like that.

 

 And also thanks to our nanny, we took off one afternoon for a date to St. Pete.

Glass blowing demo

Our stroll around town led us to this cool sun dial.

 

 Also in our jaunt around town, we found this quiet street with beautiful homes near the canal and I decided in that moment that Florida was worthy. I could live here.

 The Chihuly collection

 Our first Melting Pot experience

The Clearwater Marine Aquarium

This is not your typical aquarium. Mostly they bring injured sea animals here to nurse along and keep. If anyone has seen the movie "Dolphin Tale", the dolphin is the movie is here and got her prosthetic tail here.

For the record, River declared it "boring". There is an aquarium in Tampa which I think they would have liked better, but Dad was not up for the traffic to get there. Did I mention that it took us 3 hours to get home from Busch Gardens...traffic hold ups, both of our phones died on the way back which we were using for a GPS...it was a hairy situation...but we made it back. Alive.

 Our condo was next to Madeira Beach so I just had to get some pictures there with her.

 

Jeremy's great aunt spends her winters in Sarasota so we met up with her for supper the last night.

 

 And then we went back to our condo, packed up, got up at the crack of dawn the next day (4:45 AM people!), had an uneventful flight home, and got back to Bloomington before 9. So no excuse to not get right to work with unpacking, laundry, etc.
Just like that. Vacation over.
Until next time, Florida.
Although I'm putting in an order for warmer weather and less wind my next trip.
XOXO,
Shara & co