Verdict - Not Guilty

Guilt seems to come at us from all over the place.  We feel "mommy guilt" because we let our kids watch TV when we just need a break already for 30 minutes.  Because we fed them junk food once this week (okay, maybe more than once.).   Because we didn't have their baseball uniform washed on time and had to pick it out of the bottom of the dirty laundry hamper (of course that has never happened to me, cough).  Because we haven't done the "thing" we were supposed to do, according to whatever study has come out today.  You know those "studies" - the ones that tell you to do one thing this week and then will be refuted next week by another one?

I had a big dose of mommy guilt this week.  Today little Mr. Iain is on a field trip with his play school group to our local kiddie amusement park, the Land of Make Believe.  It's a cute place that's just for little kids - all the rides are pint sized.  I've been there soooo many times over the years with the older boys.  Iain didn't have to go today as Wednesday is not his normal play school day.  So I didn't sign him up.  But then the school said that he could go if he wanted to.  Sure, I said! 

But then it dawned on me...do I have to go with him?  I know many other mommies are going.  But to be honest, I just couldn't stand to go there again.  Even though he'll have a blast on this beautiful sunny spring day.  It would be priceless to see his little face on the car/airplane/dragon/boat/etc rides.  I could get some really cute photos for the scrapbook.  But, truth be told, I would much rather spend the day in my basement sorting though the piles of paperwork on my desk and maybe catching a few minutes of the View.

There are days when Mommy needs a break.   Desperately.  Does not taking my son to the park make me a bad mom?  Good Lord, no.  But do I feel guilty about it?  Well, yeah.  For a few minutes anyway.  Until I realized that he's fine with his teachers - who are all wonderful.  That he's not going to be crying for me because I'm not there.  That because I've had a few hours to myself, I will be much more patient with ALL my boys when they explode into the house later this afternoon and leave their school papers, shoes and dirt scattered all over my newly vacuumed carpet.

Sometimes we just need to give ourselves a break.  Guilt free.  I've enjoyed every bit of mine today.

Just Do It. Really.

We all know the Nike saying, Just Do It. Billions of advertising dollars aside, those three little words truly are a phrase to live by.

I've never been an athlete. I've windsurfed and scuba dived, even attempted tennis and baseball, until I injured myself falling over my own two feet and got bonked in the head by a very hard softball in my teenage years. I was never part of a sports team. Or had any talent in any athletic endeavor. But I always wanted it.

I had marveled at a dear friend of mine who completed the MORE magazine Half Marathon in New York twice over the last two years. She was an inspiration. I tried last year to train for it, but didn't really follow a proper plan and kept hearing that voice in the back of my mind telling me I wasn't an athlete so what the heck was I doing? And then, crack, stress fracture in my right knee.

Fast forward to January of this year, time to start training again. This being the year I turned 40, I decided, as the saying goes, to Just Do It. I told that unathletic voice to go away and replaced it with one that said You Can Do It. And so I did. I followed a plan. Sure, it didn't always work out - sick kids and life in general can get in the way sometimes. But I never said quit. There were mornings that I didn't want to get up and go to the gym, windy cold and rainy days that I didn't want to run outside. But I kept telling myself, Just Do It. Just Do It.

And I Did It.

I wasn't fast. But I Did It. And I will Do It Again.

Those three little words can apply to all aspects of life. There's always an excuse for not doing something. For months I've tried to get going with this blog, but there's always been an excuse for why I couldn't sit down and spend 15 minutes writing. So now, I just sit down and do it - the laundry, dirty kitchen floor and kids can wait for 15 minutes. It's not perfect. But it doesn't have to be. It just has to get done.

I don't have to be a perfect writer. I just have to write.
I don't have to be a fast runner. I just have to run.

So forget the excuses.

Just Do It.

What if?

As a parent - heck, as a human - there's a phrase that pops up time and time again, usually in a negative sense...

What if...?

What if my child gets sick?
What if we get in an accident?
What if I lose my job?
What if...? Just fill in the blank and worry instantly follows.

From the mind of an adult, the What if...?'s are usually negative questions about all the bad things that can happen. But my 7-year old son Collin asks plenty of What if...'s from a much better place.

What if I drank the biggest bottle of olive oil and then I grew to be 3000 years old and then I grew to be 6000 years old and I was so tall that I took the Empire State Building to be my walking stick and I grew a beard that went around the world 3 times and then I burped and it was so big that it crushed the earth and then I went back to being 7 again?

While I don't like to think of my 6000 year old son's burp crushing the earth, kudos to him for the big smile on his face as he thought of his latest "What if...?"

What if, indeed?

What if, as adults, we stopped worrying about all the things that can go wrong and started thinking about all the things that go right?

What if we started thinking about the fun things instead of the bad things?

What if, indeed? The world might be a much happier place.

Oh, and what if you hear a huge rumbling in the air? Don't worry, that's just my 6000 year old son burping.

Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin

You know those moments of motherhood that you dream of? The ones bathed in the pure delight of your children, with them gazing up at you, love in their eyes, straight out of some sappy commercial? Well, I thought I was having one of those the other day.



Picture it. The sun is streaming through the front window, gloriously filling the room with light following days of rain and darkness. I have two of my three boys with me, one on either side, with my arms around them, feeling the love that only a mother has, feeling the gratitude for these blessings in my life.



Collin looks up at me, smiling. I imagine the words coming out of his mouth...Mom, I love you. I'm so glad you are my mom. I'll never hit my brother again. Can we read a book together?



Ha.



Instead, I get...Mom, you have a beard.



Yeah, you heard right. Mom, you have a beard.



To which his two year old brother immediately, gleefully, responds...Mommy have a beard! Mommy have a beard!



Now I may be 40, that magical decade of middle age, hormonal changes, rapidly graying hair and bifocals, but please. A beard?



Yeah mom, when the sun shines on your chin, I see all the hair you have there. You have a beard.



Thank god he did not see the mole that I do indeed have on my chin. You know, the one that has a hair growing out of it. The hair that would grow to a foot in length over the course of a week if I did not pluck it regularly. Gross, I know. But doesn't everyone have one of those somewhere?



I called my BFF. I told her about the beard. And the mole.



And then she laughed. I have a mole too! she said. On my chin too!! she said. With a hair!!! she said.



Well, I felt a bit better about the whole mole thing.



But not about the beard thing. She doesn't have a beard. That is something that is all mine. After all, she's only 37. Something to look forward to, I guess.

Butterflies, Ladybugs and Flowers

Hello friends!

Today is a special day for me – I’m publishing my very first blog entry! I’ve been wanting to write a book, start a business, and various other things for so long – many of you know that I did start to publish a newsletter last year but I just wasn’t in the right place to continue it. Now I think the time is here for me to start focusing more on my career and personal goals – step one is a blog, and here I am! I’m calling my blog the Half Full Pink Martini…Common Sense Musings on Life, Home and Motherhood. A mouthful, yes, but the name has real meaning to me. Half full – I’ve always been an optimist, seeing the glass as half full. Pink – with a husband a three sons, I need some pink in my life. Martini? Well, need I say more? And if there is one thing I’m passionate about, it’s using common sense. I feel that it is so lacking in our world today! My goal is to spread a little common sense around the globe.

As I write this, I’m sitting in the Pediatric Oncology Infusion Clinic at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. My eldest son Corbin is receiving his monthly treatment for his various diseases. We’ve been coming here for almost 5 years, since Corbin was 4. It’s never an easy place to be, despite the many many days we have spent here. The room is filled with children getting their chemo, some just babies, others in their teens, hooked up to their IVs, some crying out of fear and pain. A few of the children have lost their hair and are obviously very ill. Others are running around chasing toy cars on the floor or watching videos at their seats. It’s a room full of fear and uncertainty. But it is also a room of great hope and beauty. We are on the seventh floor, sitting at a window overlooking the majestic Hudson River. From another window, we have a view of the Empire State building and the skyscrapers of Manhattan. On the windows are stickers of butterflies, on the doors, ladybugs, and painted flowers cover the floor. The young girl in the bed next to Corbin is choosing a wig – she wants to look like Hannah Montana! The nurses are some of the most caring and supportive people you could ever hope to meet. Corbin is snuggled up in his chair drinking lemonade, eating chips and Skittles and watching the latest Indiana Jones movie – he always gets what he wants on his treatment days!

Coming here always makes me think of the fragility and randomness of life – what force makes an innocent child critically ill but gives another a childhood without disease? It’s a question that I don’t think anyone can answer, but it makes me realize what a gift day to day life is, and that it is my responsibility - both to myself and my husband and children - to live it fully. I truly believe in Living a Charmed Life! One of my favorite authors, Victoria Moran, has written 2 books about just that – Creating a Charmed Life and most recently Living a Charmed Life. Her writing has inspired me to think and live this way, that despite our health problems and the stresses that can so easily consume us, we have so much to celebrate. Whether it be the butterfly stickers on the window, or the parties the nurses here give to each child who completes his or her chemo treatments and moves forward in health, there is much joy in this room, just as there is much joy in the normal day to day existence of our lives. Sometimes we just have to look for it.

You can find Victoria’s books on Amazon.com. Visit her website at www.victoriamoran.com. I’m sure you’ll find her books inspirational too.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you come back for more!