Long Overdue

My last blog was a Christmas Wish list rant! I wish I consistently remembered/made time to blog. I think I have kind of a unique-ish voice and I like the idea that I can share my thoughts about stuff with others who may (or may not) care.

Anyway, one of the biggest things that has happened since I last blogged was I ended the childcare arrangement that I had had. Nothing absolutely horrible happened but my "mom equivalent" spidey senses were tingling. My girls just weren't acting like themselves and they didn't want to go in the mornings. My children have been doing so much better since I made that call so I know it was the right one for them. Abbi has been acting more like my Abbi and there has been less bad attitude and arguing in our home plus she's been doing so much better in school. Zippy is  just little and fun and I enjoy every extra second I get to be with her.

It's been tough for me though. My mother has been being really great and has been helping to fill our gap in care. I pay for her gas to travel back and forth but its still somewhat of a burden on her. I've been trying to find a good fit for a care provider but my luck has been pretty low. I know I need someone who understands me. What that means is :

1. Has an excellent grasp of the English language (or at least my awkward way of using it)
2. Most likely has children of their own 
3. Parents/Attends to children "Like they mean it!"

I guess I should also define what I mean by "like they mean it!". I have found that I am not a "chill " mom. Nope, I'm not particularly laid back. My children are incredibly important to me and I want the very very best for them. So I'm not ok with just filling time. I want them to have wonderfully enriching experiences. I want them to stare at stars and wonder, to view things through a microscope and think, I want them to master new skills and feel wonderfully empowered and quietly confident. And I don't want them to gawk at screens and just let their brains melt before they've even started to fully solidify. While we have a tv in our house and we do watch a show or two we break it up with play that encourages some form of learning or personal development.

I want my girls to be together as much as possible. Zi loves Abbi so much. It is truly heart warming to watch them get along (and so frustrating when they fight). My desire to have them together also complicates finding care. Abbi needs someone willing to take her to and from school and Zi is a toddler who naps during the day. Many care providers will do either school aged kids or only under 3 so its a rarity to find a person or company willing to do both. I know Zippy will do much better transitioning into a new spaces if her sister is there. I also know that it would be a pain to have to make multiple trips to drop them off and pick them up each day.

Lastly, cost is an issue. While no one is at risk of going hungry at our house we are certainly less than loaded. Many childcare options would completely consume my wage therefor defeating the point of my working. Most options are at least half of what I make which is demoralizing. We're trying to attack our debt and save enough money for some needed renos on our house (Our house is freezing cold because the basement is uninsulated and our windows are from the 80's). While I know I am making a valuable contribution to our finances, I also know I'm out of my home more than I'd like to be and making less hourly then my husband. Ben is awesome, don't get me wrong, he deserves the good job he has found but chewing in my mind is the fact that I actually have more education than he does. I'd like to think I could at least make the same hourly wage that he does but it would seem that I can't.

So we're stuck calling around, checking online, making appointment to see, looking into plan B, C, D but really I just want to find someone who loves my kids the way I do and I know that's unrealistic. I hope I can find someone wonderful and begrudgingly settle to give the hours of my children's lives over to them and then also pay them money. Seems pretty unfair to me but that's because they are mine and I enjoy spending time with them.

If anyone knows anyone who offers childcare who is awesome I would love to hear about it :)
I'll try to make the interval between this post and the next less than a month!

Feeling ok just being myself.

I think that everyone at one point or another has felt insecure about themselves. I think some people go through an unfortunate amount of their lives trying to act like someone else to please others or to just simply hide their true selves. I know that in high school I struggled and often attempted to hide my true self to avoid criticism; or to make perceived criticism not impact me as deeply.  It hasn't been until recently that I have felt that I know myself well enough and feel confident enough in myself to act in a manner that is more coherent with my current concept of my true self.

I have been learning so much about myself and life in general recently that I thought I'd share my insight. I know that not only one philosophy works for everyone and I'm sure that someone out there will disagree with me but just refer to the title, I'm ok just being me. For simplicity sake I have tried to organize my thoughts into some bullet points.

Saying what you really mean and really meaning what you say.
For me being able to practice this is one of the most important forms of integrity but as it is with many good things its harder to put into practice than it is to talk about. I know many of us through our upbringing feel compelled to say good things or what we think others want to hear. While I don't advocate brutal honesty I do think many people need to check their line between being nice and lying. If you have no intentions of following through on what you are saying maybe you shouldn't say it-even if it is a nice thing to say. For me I have had to find ways to be nice and understanding of others while not saying I'll do things I don't have time for. Furthermore, I have had to find the confidence to either decline from giving my opinion or respectfully disagreeing when I'm in a conversation with someone and I can't honestly agree with what they are saying. My motivations in this are to be more true to who I am and not just an agreeable lump of a human who then secretly thinks her own things but doesn't share them.

Respectfully disagreeing
So I think that respectfully disagreeing is such an art that it deserves its very own heading.The key, of course, is the respectful part. It's rather easy to be generally disagreeable and to shoot down everything others say but that's more being a troll than being confident in who you are. While its true I do still generally avoid a situation in which I am prone to disagree with others I'm in the process of learning how to disagree gracefully. I legitimately want to be the kind of person that just emanates respect for others.We are all fighting our own battles and I do hope to not make life more difficult for others along the way. I find pointing out the merits of another persons opinions to relay a certain level of respect and I also find not overly promoting my views, to be a good idea. No one is obliged to see the world as I do and conversely I don't have to take on the views of anyone else and we can still peacefully coexist together.

Finding greater love for myself and finding motivation to find greater love for others
I feel that discussing love flows out of discussing respect because deep and abiding love is often manifested through respect. As I come to to truly feel worthy of respect and love I realize the need to love and respect others because I'm not the unique snowflake- I am just like everybody else. And being like everybody else doesn't diminish me. I think that feeling greater sameness with those around me helps me to have more of a Golden Rule prospective. If people aren't like me , treating them how I would like to be treated wouldn't produce favorable results. I think philosophies that we are unique and special can cause and artificial sense  of separation from others. As I come to love myself not for my relative differences from others but just simply because I am who I am right now and that is enough - I think I'm finding a deeper level of self acceptance and one that breeds a need for me to be more accepting of others.

Other important pearls of wisdom I currently believe -

•  We're are all changing, I know I'm not the exact same person I was yesterday growing together and apart is a natural process but the level of respect can be constant.

• Self deprecation is NOT humility - I get so tired of hearing people put themselves down thinking that somehow that means their humble. Being humble can mean acknowledging faults but more than that I think it's realizing that you are not innately superior to another person in any way. Even if a person is involved in what you would deem to be morally questionable behavior it is quite an assumption that you would fair differently if in their shoes.
• The only "fair" criticism (if there is such a thing) of others is their motives and intentions and those are often very very difficult to accurately determine.

These are my thought for the day. I really desire to be a loving and accepting person. I know I fall short more often than not and I don't mean to be a hypocrite by posting this. In a way I want people to know more of my true self- someone who struggles but generally intends to go about doing good and lifting others.