My children don't care that we don't have a 70 inch flat screen tv. All they care about is that I sit down and snuggle them while we watch a My Little Pony episode on our 27 inch boxy 10 year old tv.
My children don't care that we don't have smartphones. All they care about is that Mommy can take a picture of them being silly with her basic phone and text it to Daddy.
My children don't care that they have hand-me-down clothes or clothes from garage sales. All they care about is that their skirt flares out as they twirl around the living room, imagining they are princesses.
My children don't care that we drive a 9 year old minivan. All they care about is that I buckle them in safely and that I play I Spy with them as we run errands together.
My children don't care that we don't have a Dyson vacuum. All they care about is that they get to take turns practicing running our funny sounding Bissell vacuum that a friend gave to us that they were going throw away because they didn't need it anymore, but it still does the job ok.
My children don't care that we don't have a MacBook Pro. All they care about is that we can watch a hilarious-to-them video of a cat jumping in and out a box on youtube on our $300 HP laptop that we bought on Black Friday 3 and a half years ago.
My children don't care that we don't have an iPad. All they care about is jumping for joy for the few and far between times that I let them play games on our 3 and a half year old iTouch that was Daddy's chiropractic graduation present.
My children don't care that they haven't been to Disneyland yet. All they care about is that they can bring a seashell or two home from our local beach after they play in the sand for hours.
My children don't care that we don't have a gigantic bookshelf full of children's books just for them, but they do have a sufficient amount of books. All they care about is that we make it to the library often to check out new books and that we read them all 800 times before we take them back.
My children don't care that we don't have extra plush hypoallergenic couches. All they care about is that I watch them do flips and tricks and jump off of our 11 year old scuffed leather couches.
My children don't care that they aren't taking piano, gymnastics, swimming, soccer, and dance simultaneously. All they care about is that I take them to a splash pad, let them run and kick a big bouncy ball on the local baseball field, take them to go jump on their grandma's trampoline and pound on her piano keys, and have spontaneous dance parties with them in our living rom.
My children don't care that we don't have an Xbox with 50 different games. All they care about it that I let them play Super Mario Brothers a few times per year when we set up our NES and also play Wii Sports, both systems that were given to us years ago.
My children don't care that we don't own our own home. All they care about it that I let them hang their pasted, taped, and glittery artwork on their whitewashed bedroom walls in our home that we're renting.
My children don't care that they can't buy a toy every time we go to the store. All they care about is that we let them pick a toy to carry and walk around with while we shop, and then they know that they have to put it down before we get to checkout and they do just fine with that.
My children don't care that we don't eat strictly organic. All they care about is that they are fed when they are hungry, that they have a sufficient amount of fruit and yogurt and chicken and pasta in the house.
My children don't care that they have to go to church for 3 hours every Sunday morning. All they care about is that they get to see their little friends there and also learn the basics about sharing, praying, singing, the scriptures, and learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus.
.....................................
I have never ever once heard my children give a genuine complaint for not having anything listed above. An occasional whine about them wanting a candy bar or wanting to buy a toy at a garage sale? Sure. But of the more expensive things in life? No. They.Don't.Care.
So why do I write this? I write it as a reminder to myself, a reminder that it's ok to have simple inexpensive things. And I have absolutely NO PROBLEM AT ALL if other people have/do/have done any of the above, that's perfectly fine and everyone is entitled to spend their money how they choose. No judgment passed whatsoever. If you can genuinely afford it, go for it, you've worked hard for your money.
Of course I occasionally covet nicer amenities, gadgets, vehicles, and vacations, but this is a season in our lives where we have chosen to not have most of these things. Could we indulge in any of the above listed? Sure, we definitely could. But we have made a conscious decision to wait and to live simpler, to make what we have last as long as we can. We have a Mt. Everest of student loans we are trying to pay down (they'll be paid off in abouuuuut 99 years) and we choose to put most of our extra money towards easing our financial future. It's hard though, so very hard sometimes. But we figure we will sacrifice now while our children are younger, while they still see the world as their playground and tangible things hold little value for them.
My children want for nothing. They have everything they need and they have a lot of what they want.
My children will choose me over anything else. If we were to go out and buy a $500 Barbie Dreamhouse and 2 minutes after we got home and set it up I offered to go play outside in the dirt with them, 3 seconds later they would be outside up to their elbows in dirt, laughing and smiling with me. They don't want stuff, they want me.
Very very few of my childhood memories involve tangible items. They involve people and experiences. They involve road trips. They involve church activities. They involve joking around with my parents and my siblings. They involve playing with friends.
So during those times where I am debating whether or not to make a purchase that I think will bring my children happiness (I hardly doubt they will care if we get new couches or a flatsceen tv), I have to sit back and think "Am I buying it for them or am I buying it for me?". And of course we occasionally splurge because I think it is human nature to have the intense need to indulge a little more than we should. We've gone on vacations. We've spent too much on unnecessary purchases. We're trying to reign in our micro spending, $20 here and $10 there, it adds up and it adds up quickly.
One day I will have all of the above. We'll have the nice flatscreen tv, we'll have the smartphones, we'll have the home, we'll have the Dyson, but right now is not the time for us, we need to spend our money elsewhere, we need to pay down our debt and I need to create memories with my children
And now you know why my children don't care.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The hardest lesson of 2012...
Last year was a pretty rough year.
Landon's pregnancy was BY FAR my most difficult pregnancy. There was much nausea, much puking, much insomnia, much relentless aching, much fatigue. I wasn't just sick for the first trimester, I was sick for the entire pregnancy, save a few weeks in the middle when I felt functional, but then the nausea and puking was back, making each day feel like it was a week.
I was in survival mode. My only focus was on me and making it until mid September when our little baby would make his entrance. I was so sick a lot of mornings that Dean would take whichever one of the girls that woke up super early with him to go teach seminary because I literally couldn't take care of them in the morning that early because I would have finally fallen asleep at 4:30 a.m.. I desperately needed to sleep. Even though my friends offered to take my girls to give me some reprieve, I always objected because as difficult as it was to take care of them throughout being so sick for so long, they were at least a distraction throughout the day, something that I had to attend to that took my focus off of the nausea for a moment.
However, my daughters watched more television during those 8 months of feeling like death than I'm proud to admit though. You know it's bad when your 3 year old can tell you exactly which episode of Dora we're watching from the first 5 seconds of it being on, and there's about 80 episodes to choose from on Netflix.
I spent a lot of time in self pity mode. Why did this pregnancy have to be so hard? Why were none of the anti-nausea remedies working? Why couldn't I sleep? Why did my daughters seem to become exponentially more difficult overnight? What in the world was I thinking, thinking that I could handle another child, giving us 3 kids ages 3 and under??!?!????
I desperately missed and wanted my mom. I ached to talk to her, to lament to her, to tell her how nervous and excited I was to have another child, to have her come over and just let me put my head on her lap and have her soft my arm until I had to go wipe a child's nose or get them a snack. I never had an experience of "I feel like my mom is close right now during my time of trial", which I had built up in my mind was going to happen, so that made it harder some days. I just missed and needed her.
Dean picked up all of my slack. The man did everything during my pregnancy. Everything.
This was his schedule:
-Wake up at 5:30 a.m.
-Teach Seminary to a bunch of teenagers from 6-7 a.m.
-Come home and shower the girls and get them ready and fed
-Get himself ready, often times not having enough time to eat in the mornings
-Load up the girls so I can take Kara to preschool
-He goes to work
-Work,work, work
-Come home for lunch from 1:30 to 2:40p.m.
-He made food for the girls for lunch. I was so nauseous that it was hard for me to prepare food for them.
-He goes back to work and work, work, work until 6:30 p.m.
-Gets home around 6:40-7 p.m.
-He made dinner and fed the girls
-Plays with the girls
-Gets them in their pajamas, reads to them, and puts them to bed
-Does dishes, laundry, cleans up the tornado of toys all over the house
-Gets his seminary lesson ready for the next morning
-Goes to bed around 11p.m. or midnight
-Gets up at 5:30 a.m. and does the same routine over again
Dean was mommy and daddy. He would let me squeeze out every last minute of sleep in the mornings because I slept so little. I would spend a lot of my day leaning over the kitchen sink, ready to vomit, or I would be on the couch with a bowl next to me. I was just existing, not parenting. Dean picked up all my slack. Of course not all day of every day was like that, but it was more so than not.
I'm not very good at taking self-pity and despair and translating them into tears, except when I get pushed to my absolute limit every few months. Instead I sublimated my angst into anger. And sadly I used my anger on the one closest to me. Dean.
Through everything he was doing to serve me and our children, I still found myself angry at him for lots of little things. Why was he cleaning the microwave when there was laundry to be folded? Why was he making noodles for the girls when the smell was enough to send me running for the bathroom? Why was he doing his seminary lesson preparation instead of sitting on the couch spending time with me?
Irrational annoyances.
But they were there, nonetheless. There was a wedge silently driven between us. I started to get annoyed. He started to get annoyed. I REALLY started to get annoyed. I felt completely not in control of my ever growing belly and body, I couldn't assuage my all day sickness, I just wanted this pregnancy to be done, yet I didn't because I knew Landon was going to be our last baby. It was a bittersweet pregnancy.
And then we got to the point that Dean and I just orbited around each other. Co-existed. Roommates. He was so busy taking care of everything, and I was so busy taking care of me. We didn't hate living with one another, but we just lived with one another, that's all. Significant communication was happening less and less frequently, and small talk was more common place. We did what we needed to for our kids and then let life get in the way between us.
That's not okay in a marriage, at least not in our marriage.
Through a couple of happenings, a couple of months before I was due, I ended up calling my sister, who is one of my best friends and happens to also be an amazing therapist (good thing she's my sister and I get the free family discount because I'd owe her a brand new Mercedes Benz as back payment if she ever decided to charge me), and I unloaded all of my annoyances, fears, frustrations, and crazies all over her. I knew she was safe, that she would help me through this tumultuous time. I let the waterworks flow and cried myself to the point of exhaustion to her more than once.
Now, if you know me then you know that I don't publicly complain about my husband to family and friends. I just don't do it. Nothing more than "Dean didn't pick up his shoes and I tripped on them in the middle of the night" ever comes from my mouth. People are ALWAYS going to remember the bad things you say about your husband at a 10:1 over the good you say about then. That's just an agreement we've always had, we don't go verbally slaughtering the other one to other people.
But I felt like I needed someone, SOMEONE, to talk to and I know my sister well enough to know that she wouldn't be a gossip, she would have sound advice for me on how to properly handle what I was feeling, and that she would know when I just needed to talk and she just needed to listen. And she filled her role perfectly.
I vented about my frustrations. I vented about Dean's shortcomings. Since I'm his wife, I know his chinks in his armor, and just had tunnel vision for his shortcomings. I thought he wasn't living up to his potential in some very simple areas so I focused on that. So I bark bark barked to my sister, and she listened and gave advice and listened and gave advice. She and I did the same dance on the phone for a few consecutive days.
Finally on the 3rd or 4th day of me venting frustrations to my sister on the other end of the phone, she threw me a curve ball. I still remember this conversation perfectly:
Me, crying: bark, bark, bark and give excuses about everything I'm annoyed and frustrated and despairing with.....
Sister: "Ok, Michelle, stop."
Me: "What?"
Sister: "Stop."
Sister: "Do you want me to be nice or mean right now?"
Me: "What???"
Sister: "I said, do you want me to be nice or mean?"
Me: Ummm, mean?"
Sister: "You sure?"
Me: "Yes."
Sister: "Ok."
Me, nervous: "Ok."
Sister: "Michelle, YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS."
One-two sucker punch to the stomach.
I was at a loss for words.
I just sat there stunned, silently crying into the phone as I let those words sink in.
It took me about .3 seconds to realize that she was completely right in every sense of the word. I had put myself on a pedestal, I was better than Dean because I didn't have his struggles.
Those words were EXACTLY what I needed to hear, and my sister was brave enough to purposely and lovingly hurt me, she, knowing that I needed to be brought down and have a mirror held up in front of my face.
I didn't like what I saw in that mirror that was now held up in front of me. I saw a girl with a lot of unfounded anger. I saw a girl who was trying to do everything and nothing by herself all at the same time. I saw a girl who had slowly pulled herself away from her Heavenly Father because she was afraid of the hurt and sorrow she would have to face to completely turn back towards him and do everything that she knew she was supposed to be doing.
I had unconsciously and semi-consciously focused on everyone else's shortcomings in my life as to avoid acknowledging and dealing with my own.
Through talking with my sister more, she helped me to see what I needed to work on, what Dean and I needed to work on together, and we started to do the work. It was uncomfortable to start to remove that wedge, it was uncomfortable to really start to talk again, it was uncomfortable to remove the distractions and de-clutter our lives, and it was uncomfortable to make the spiritual shift.
I often heard my sister's words, "YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS" swirling around in my head, reminding myself that Dean is my equal, that I need to work on my own problems and that I cannot work on his problems for him. We are both in charge of ourselves and the more we try to get another person to change, the more they will resist the change, they are the only ones who can make a true change if they so choose. As I slowly practiced relinquishing control and nitpicking, the more of a positive shift I saw in our lives.
Effective communication will always be a lifelong effort, and it's something that will probably come in waves, but I don't even want it to put us to co-existing status again.
I like the slow shift that I've started to see occurring in me. I'm by no means a perfect wife and mother and sister, but I'm trying harder. And I've applied my sister's words of wisdom to all aspects of my life. I've become MUCH less judgmental of others because I realize that getting involved and passionate about other people's drama just distracts me from working on me. I cannot fix other people's lives. I can compassionately listen, but I cannot fix their problems for them, it's not my job to fix their problems, and it is only emotionally draining for me to get so vested in their drama.
In a way, I'm grateful for that stressful time in our marriage because though I couldn't see the forest through the trees at the time, now I can and it's one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
Landon's pregnancy was BY FAR my most difficult pregnancy. There was much nausea, much puking, much insomnia, much relentless aching, much fatigue. I wasn't just sick for the first trimester, I was sick for the entire pregnancy, save a few weeks in the middle when I felt functional, but then the nausea and puking was back, making each day feel like it was a week.
I was in survival mode. My only focus was on me and making it until mid September when our little baby would make his entrance. I was so sick a lot of mornings that Dean would take whichever one of the girls that woke up super early with him to go teach seminary because I literally couldn't take care of them in the morning that early because I would have finally fallen asleep at 4:30 a.m.. I desperately needed to sleep. Even though my friends offered to take my girls to give me some reprieve, I always objected because as difficult as it was to take care of them throughout being so sick for so long, they were at least a distraction throughout the day, something that I had to attend to that took my focus off of the nausea for a moment.
However, my daughters watched more television during those 8 months of feeling like death than I'm proud to admit though. You know it's bad when your 3 year old can tell you exactly which episode of Dora we're watching from the first 5 seconds of it being on, and there's about 80 episodes to choose from on Netflix.
I spent a lot of time in self pity mode. Why did this pregnancy have to be so hard? Why were none of the anti-nausea remedies working? Why couldn't I sleep? Why did my daughters seem to become exponentially more difficult overnight? What in the world was I thinking, thinking that I could handle another child, giving us 3 kids ages 3 and under??!?!????
I desperately missed and wanted my mom. I ached to talk to her, to lament to her, to tell her how nervous and excited I was to have another child, to have her come over and just let me put my head on her lap and have her soft my arm until I had to go wipe a child's nose or get them a snack. I never had an experience of "I feel like my mom is close right now during my time of trial", which I had built up in my mind was going to happen, so that made it harder some days. I just missed and needed her.
Dean picked up all of my slack. The man did everything during my pregnancy. Everything.
This was his schedule:
-Wake up at 5:30 a.m.
-Teach Seminary to a bunch of teenagers from 6-7 a.m.
-Come home and shower the girls and get them ready and fed
-Get himself ready, often times not having enough time to eat in the mornings
-Load up the girls so I can take Kara to preschool
-He goes to work
-Work,work, work
-Come home for lunch from 1:30 to 2:40p.m.
-He made food for the girls for lunch. I was so nauseous that it was hard for me to prepare food for them.
-He goes back to work and work, work, work until 6:30 p.m.
-Gets home around 6:40-7 p.m.
-He made dinner and fed the girls
-Plays with the girls
-Gets them in their pajamas, reads to them, and puts them to bed
-Does dishes, laundry, cleans up the tornado of toys all over the house
-Gets his seminary lesson ready for the next morning
-Goes to bed around 11p.m. or midnight
-Gets up at 5:30 a.m. and does the same routine over again
Dean was mommy and daddy. He would let me squeeze out every last minute of sleep in the mornings because I slept so little. I would spend a lot of my day leaning over the kitchen sink, ready to vomit, or I would be on the couch with a bowl next to me. I was just existing, not parenting. Dean picked up all my slack. Of course not all day of every day was like that, but it was more so than not.
I'm not very good at taking self-pity and despair and translating them into tears, except when I get pushed to my absolute limit every few months. Instead I sublimated my angst into anger. And sadly I used my anger on the one closest to me. Dean.
Through everything he was doing to serve me and our children, I still found myself angry at him for lots of little things. Why was he cleaning the microwave when there was laundry to be folded? Why was he making noodles for the girls when the smell was enough to send me running for the bathroom? Why was he doing his seminary lesson preparation instead of sitting on the couch spending time with me?
Irrational annoyances.
But they were there, nonetheless. There was a wedge silently driven between us. I started to get annoyed. He started to get annoyed. I REALLY started to get annoyed. I felt completely not in control of my ever growing belly and body, I couldn't assuage my all day sickness, I just wanted this pregnancy to be done, yet I didn't because I knew Landon was going to be our last baby. It was a bittersweet pregnancy.
And then we got to the point that Dean and I just orbited around each other. Co-existed. Roommates. He was so busy taking care of everything, and I was so busy taking care of me. We didn't hate living with one another, but we just lived with one another, that's all. Significant communication was happening less and less frequently, and small talk was more common place. We did what we needed to for our kids and then let life get in the way between us.
That's not okay in a marriage, at least not in our marriage.
Through a couple of happenings, a couple of months before I was due, I ended up calling my sister, who is one of my best friends and happens to also be an amazing therapist (good thing she's my sister and I get the free family discount because I'd owe her a brand new Mercedes Benz as back payment if she ever decided to charge me), and I unloaded all of my annoyances, fears, frustrations, and crazies all over her. I knew she was safe, that she would help me through this tumultuous time. I let the waterworks flow and cried myself to the point of exhaustion to her more than once.
Now, if you know me then you know that I don't publicly complain about my husband to family and friends. I just don't do it. Nothing more than "Dean didn't pick up his shoes and I tripped on them in the middle of the night" ever comes from my mouth. People are ALWAYS going to remember the bad things you say about your husband at a 10:1 over the good you say about then. That's just an agreement we've always had, we don't go verbally slaughtering the other one to other people.
But I felt like I needed someone, SOMEONE, to talk to and I know my sister well enough to know that she wouldn't be a gossip, she would have sound advice for me on how to properly handle what I was feeling, and that she would know when I just needed to talk and she just needed to listen. And she filled her role perfectly.
I vented about my frustrations. I vented about Dean's shortcomings. Since I'm his wife, I know his chinks in his armor, and just had tunnel vision for his shortcomings. I thought he wasn't living up to his potential in some very simple areas so I focused on that. So I bark bark barked to my sister, and she listened and gave advice and listened and gave advice. She and I did the same dance on the phone for a few consecutive days.
Finally on the 3rd or 4th day of me venting frustrations to my sister on the other end of the phone, she threw me a curve ball. I still remember this conversation perfectly:
Me, crying: bark, bark, bark and give excuses about everything I'm annoyed and frustrated and despairing with.....
Sister: "Ok, Michelle, stop."
Me: "What?"
Sister: "Stop."
Sister: "Do you want me to be nice or mean right now?"
Me: "What???"
Sister: "I said, do you want me to be nice or mean?"
Me: Ummm, mean?"
Sister: "You sure?"
Me: "Yes."
Sister: "Ok."
Me, nervous: "Ok."
Sister: "Michelle, YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS."
One-two sucker punch to the stomach.
I was at a loss for words.
I just sat there stunned, silently crying into the phone as I let those words sink in.
It took me about .3 seconds to realize that she was completely right in every sense of the word. I had put myself on a pedestal, I was better than Dean because I didn't have his struggles.
Those words were EXACTLY what I needed to hear, and my sister was brave enough to purposely and lovingly hurt me, she, knowing that I needed to be brought down and have a mirror held up in front of my face.
I didn't like what I saw in that mirror that was now held up in front of me. I saw a girl with a lot of unfounded anger. I saw a girl who was trying to do everything and nothing by herself all at the same time. I saw a girl who had slowly pulled herself away from her Heavenly Father because she was afraid of the hurt and sorrow she would have to face to completely turn back towards him and do everything that she knew she was supposed to be doing.
I had unconsciously and semi-consciously focused on everyone else's shortcomings in my life as to avoid acknowledging and dealing with my own.
Through talking with my sister more, she helped me to see what I needed to work on, what Dean and I needed to work on together, and we started to do the work. It was uncomfortable to start to remove that wedge, it was uncomfortable to really start to talk again, it was uncomfortable to remove the distractions and de-clutter our lives, and it was uncomfortable to make the spiritual shift.
I often heard my sister's words, "YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS" swirling around in my head, reminding myself that Dean is my equal, that I need to work on my own problems and that I cannot work on his problems for him. We are both in charge of ourselves and the more we try to get another person to change, the more they will resist the change, they are the only ones who can make a true change if they so choose. As I slowly practiced relinquishing control and nitpicking, the more of a positive shift I saw in our lives.
Effective communication will always be a lifelong effort, and it's something that will probably come in waves, but I don't even want it to put us to co-existing status again.
I like the slow shift that I've started to see occurring in me. I'm by no means a perfect wife and mother and sister, but I'm trying harder. And I've applied my sister's words of wisdom to all aspects of my life. I've become MUCH less judgmental of others because I realize that getting involved and passionate about other people's drama just distracts me from working on me. I cannot fix other people's lives. I can compassionately listen, but I cannot fix their problems for them, it's not my job to fix their problems, and it is only emotionally draining for me to get so vested in their drama.
In a way, I'm grateful for that stressful time in our marriage because though I couldn't see the forest through the trees at the time, now I can and it's one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
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