A Mother's Confession

I must confess, I was stressed today. Not at you, my child, but outside things that should not affect you. I was stressed and tired. I only half heard you talking. I was only half listening and slow to respond to you. It was then I realized I am going to fail you in ways I did not expect to. I have never strived to be a super mom and in fact I try to pride myself on being only human. But as I took stock of my exhaustion and looked into my little one's eyes trying to engage me I got a reality dose of what it is to be only human. As a mom you know that there are things you are going to stumble through and possibly still not get right, you expect that. Today it was the little things that I enjoy so much like listening to my son and playing with him that I did not expect to fail at. It does not make me a failure as a mother, but it is a warning of the transitions ahead with our expanding family and the physical limits of being human. So son, I may not hear you every time, or answer you right away, or be able to stop what I am doing to talk with you but I will always love you with every ounce of my being. The love that I have for you and your future siblings is what will always keep me striving to be the best that I can be for you.

Thanks Mom

My mom passed away in 2000. Most times I think of her and smile, but there are other times I am overcome with tears. This past sunday, Mother's Day, I was in church listening to my niece sing in the choir. I prayed that my children would truely know their Grandma Mary. It was one of those overwhelming moments where tears fall. How do show my children how incredible their Grandma was, how much she would of cherished every moment with them and how big her smile would of been when they walked in the room? I have no video of my mom so they can see how she lit up a room. They can never hear her one of kind laugh. Those things make me sad. I hope that when they are older and ready they ask about her because I want to share with them. When Clay was an infant he was a bit of a grumpy baby, he rarely smiled. But there were some morning he would wake up all grins. I decided those must of been the nights my mother was visiting him. Every morning he woke up smiling I thanked my mom. I look forward to those same smiling mornings with my newest little one on the way. My Mom was far from perfect and absolutly amazing. She was a gift. Thanks Mom!

Who am I?

As I have mentioned before, I am new to the blogging world. I am still trying to find my identity in all of this. I have changed the colors and format of my blog a couple of times. The name has been changed, the description too. I chose 'A Better Tomorrow' because a friend and I were talking about opening up a shop with conscious parenting products and handmade goodies. We were going to call it 'A Better Tomorrow' because we wanted to focus on products that would have a postive environmental and social impact on the future. However, when it comes to my current blog I do not feel the connection between my posts and my title is a strong one. I have a young child and am writing about today not tomorrow. Today I am 'Cow, Rooster, Rooster', the title of almost every drawing my 23 month son draws. Cow, Rooster, Rooster. Hmm, I may have to adjust my blog again. What are your thoughts?

I Ate Meat Last Night

I ate chicken last night after 11 1/2 years of being a vegetarian. I am still trying to wrap my head around my choice. Allow me to give a little background on my choices. When I was in my second year of college I worked 3 jobs. I worked in the food court at Target, a cafe inside of a printing press and as an art model. We will concentrate on the first two jobs. My shift at Target was from 4pm to 9:30pm. I went home, changed and was off to my next job at the cafe inside the factory from 11pm to 7am. Stated simply, I worked a lot of hours in a row in front of a flat grill making burgers and fries. If you have not had the honor of working a flat grill, the secret to knowing when to flip the burger is when the blood rises to the top. Fifteen hours of blood rising to the top. I was done. Add to this growing up on a farm where we raised our own meat which meant I had never bought store beef until I was in college. The first time I actually noticed the ground beef section in the grocery store I was alarmed at the color and texture of the meat. I waved a butcher over, concerned that the meat had gone bad! I also had the amazing experience of a summer exchange to Finland where I stayed at a small dairy. The dairy had 30 head of cattle compared to 300 head at a small dairy in the area I was raised. The cattle in Finland freely grazed, and were known by name. So I had seen a better ways to raise livestock. Anyway, one night while working the night shift I stopped eating meat. I did not eat meat for 11 years after that night. I did consume eggs and dairy, but I did not use other animal bi-products (which has always made it a challenge to buy shoes). At first I craved tuna fish and Taco Bell soft tacos, but that quickly passed. I was not smart about food choices. I was not comfortable in a kitchen. I was, what I coined, a 'lazy vegetarian' for 11 years. Even when I became much better about food choices and preparation my diet was loaded with carbs. I ate pasta, cheese, fruit and sprinkled in vegetables and protein. How can that be? I was a lazy vegetarian. My food choices had led to weight gain and poor digestion. One evening, not to long ago, my DH told me that he was going on the South Beach Diet. He had read about it on the Internet and had printed out information for me to read. I dismissed it. The South Beach Diet eliminated carbs for two weeks and then slowly brings the good carbs back, in hopes that the cravings for bad carbs will be diminished. For a week he did not consume any carbs as I watched in amazement. My carb consumption was so high that I was becoming at risk for diabetes. I decided to give it a try. Bewildered by what I would eat, my DH planned the menu for the week right done to the snacks. He even went shopping for it. The first couple of days were an adjustment. By the end of week one I was not missing my pasta. Week two brought a new twist, a strong craving for meat. Skinless, baked, all white meat chicken breast to be exact. I had not had a craving for meat since that very first week 11 years ago. I had a choice to make. I needed to make a healthy and realistic choice for me. Many vegetarians have a healthy and balanced diet, but I did not. The craving for meat was strong. The past 11 years of being a vegetarian were also strong. But in the end I ate chicken last night and tonight I ate fish. So I am now a semi-vegetarian. It is a term that I thought was a bit silly for 11 years, like suddenly you can eat meat when you want to but other times your a vegetarian. Part of me is OK with my choice and has already moved on as if the vegetarian years meant nothing. The other part of me questions the morals in my choice to include white meat in my diet. What does that say about my character to just stop doing something that I had committed to for so many years? I am redefined as a person, no longer 'the vegetarian'. I do feel good about eating a more balanced diet, only having to cook one meal for the family and will gain confidence when cooking meat. But last night I ate chicken.

Connected

May I just say...er rather write, that I get such a rush from receiving and reading comments. For some the computer and Internet have a stigma of being cold and not personable. I will admit I thought this also. As I dive into different a applications on the computer I am constantly surprised on how personal it can become. When you write, you share. Your thoughts, triumphs, sorrows, and knowledge are put out to the world to be read. It can be fairly daunting when you try to grasp just how many people you just sent to. When I read other postings I do feel connected. I sometimes feel that if the writer was my neighbor, what great friends we would be. To play devils advocate I could say that I should have that connection with my 'real' neighbors. I was raised in the country, so my interaction with neighbors was probably vastly different from city folk. When I struck out on my own and lived in a city I realized how close our walls were. It was eerie for me, no true privacy. Today I am only partially connected with some of my neighbors. Some of them smoke, speak a language I don't, work night shift, and have very different priorities or goals in life. I am friendly. I wave. I give veggies, fruit, cookies and outgrown clothes to a couple of them. But I do not feel as though I could ever sit and say most of things I write to you all. The phenomenon of connection with the Internet really hit me hard when a tragedy happened to a women who posted on a forum I had recently joined. The forum is community of green mamas who share, educate, ask and answer questions openly. The women and her children were killed and the prime suspect was her husband, who had shot himself also. It was tragic, heartbreaking and is still hard to write about. I cried and I prayed for the family lost and living. I had never shaken her hand or bumped into her in the supermarket. She lived on the East coast and I am on the West coast. But we were connected. She had given answers to some of my questions. I had read her posts to other questions. I then realized the power of the Internet. It is not just a place to shop, search, and read. It is a place to be connected. I thank you for that.

Learning

http://vintagechica.typepad.com/the_life_and_times_of_thi/how-we-learn.html I just finished reading this post from the link above about how children learn and the public school system. It struck a chord with me. I had a great public school experience. My high school experience lacked in educational value, but I take responsibility for that. My DH did not enjoy his public school experience. Throughout HS he found himself knowing more about subjects than his teachers and that frustrated him. Our son is 20 months old. We have a bit before he enters the school system. But the only common ground we have when it comes to the education of our son is that we what the best for him. I would think that most parents would agree and those that would not probably do not have the education or confidence to challenge the existing system. I am currently in our back yard watching my son in nothing but a CD play in the dirt, smell flowers, climb and push around trucks. I am amazed at the rate at which he explores in order to learn more about the world around him. I am in awe of the connections he makes. Earlier I was picking weeds from the flower beds. DS came over and said, "Cow". The connection is that when we are at my father's house I pick cheeseweed for DS to give to the cow. Today I pulled cheeseweed out of our garden and he said cow. He also grabbed a handful, headed inside the house and to the front door asking for Papa. Apparently he wanted to go right then to Grandpa's to feed the cow. I never want to squash this learning.