Feeling the Same Way All Over Again

Three years ago I walked away from a job I had held for 6 years, afraid to leave, afraid to start something new. I was complacent in my misery. I had a job, an income, health insurance. I had friends I loved at work and a community that felt so secure and happy.

So what if I came home drained and burnt out? So what if I never had time to feed my passions and do the things that made me happy? Every morning was predictable, and there's safety in routine, safety in drudgery.

And then the friends left and work went from bad to worse, and I finally realized that crying myself to sleep every night just wasn't normal.

So I gave notice, found a freelance gig, and walked away.

Best thing I've ever done.

I'd spent six years shoving myself into an organization's expectations of who I should be and how I should act. I repressed myself in the process. Not pretty and not ideal.

That year of freelancing wasn't as much about earning money (which I didn't, especially when the gig fell through) as much as it was about allowing myself to just remember how to be me. About giving myself permission to like myself the way I am.

That's the year I wrote the first draft of my novel.

And then the money thing started to get to me. And maybe the eeps-if-I-finish-this-novel-then-I-have-to-shop-it-around-and-what-if-they-DON'T-LIKE-IT got to me even more.

So I got a job.

And while it was so. much. better. than the last place, I still found myself doing some of that putting aside my true self to fit the mold better thing.

I stifled my voice. I tuned into the "this is what you should be" voices.

And I put away my book. Because every time I opened it I heard those voices telling me that it wasn't good enough, that it was silly, that no one would buy it, that I was wasting my time, that I had better things to do.

I poured my heart into my blog and my job, and for a long while it was enough.

It doesn't feel like enough any more though.

Yesterday I pulled out my book and tackled the edits. Those voices are wrong. It is good. But really, I don't care whether they're right or wrong. It just feels good to let my voice sing again. It feels good to be creating something entirely mine again. It feels good to just let myself be me.

I've missed it. I've missed allowing myself to like me.

Use Your Voice

When you open your mouth to speak, what voice comes out?

Your "Mommy" voice?

Your "honey come here now" voice?

The voice that society or someone else has told you is the voice you should be using?

You have a voice. It's there for the using. Are you letting it speak?

The people I most admire are the people who only ever use their own voice. It takes guts to use your own words and share your own ideas. You have to believe in yourself and not care what others will think or expect.

Not the easiest thing to do, but quite the most powerful if you can hack it. The world could use some more original thoughts.



If you opened your mouth and let your true voice sing out, what would it say?

Why don't you let it?

This post was heavily inspired by Patti Digh's keynote speech at Type A Parent Conference this year. She rocked our socks and gave me a ton of food for thought. I've been silencing my voice for a while now, giving way to the other voices I thought were more important. It's time to let me shine through again.

Wet Nights

When the clock ticks past my bedtime and into that no-mans-land where my bed calls to me as loudly as the laundry and the dishes and my legs refuse to let me get off the couch to tend to either, my list of tasks seems insurmountable.

Some nights I just wish I could shut down my computer and slide into bed, but if I did that the house would be permanently in disarray and the laundry would never get done.

I reward myself after all the chores are finally done with a little trip into the girls' room.

I stretch up to check on C snug in her top bunk - pulling the covers over her body and tucking her doggy next to her head.

Then I swoop down to check on Little L. It's still a shock to see her in a big girl bed and not in a crib. It's amazing to me that she's big enough to fill the space so well.

I fix the covers around her slumbering form and reach down to pat her tush. More often than not her diaper is soaked and needs to be changed.

I grumble about the fact that she's not dry at night yet, but secretly I savor that late night diaper change. She's so sweet and trusting in her sleep, letting me maneuver her pajamas off, slipping off her wet diaper, and replacing it with a dry one.

Once in a while she smiles at me in her sleep or murmurs a quiet “I love you, mommy.”

Is it really any surprise that I'm in no hurry for her to be dry at night?

That said, getting her out of diapers and into training pants that she can get herself in and out of would make our bedtime routine exponentially less painful. She all too often waits until the lights have been turned off too call out to us, cheerfully informing us that she needs to go potty. Since she can't yet put her own diaper on, we have to go to her assistance, giving her some of that coveted my-sister-is-asleep-and-I'm-up-past-my-bed-time fun. Too many nights we're tempted to just tell her to pee in her diaper, but I'm always scared that that will just promote some serious bedwetting down the road.

This is the first of a series of posts sponsored and inspired by GoodNites®. Stay tuned as I introduce you to great products and tips to get you through the ups and downs of nighttime accidents. In the meantime, check out the NiteLite Panel, hosted by GoodNites®, where professionals share more information about bedwetting.
I am a GoodNites® Blogger Ambassador and I am being compensated for this series of posts, but, as always, the stories, thoughts, and opinions featured in these posts are mine and mine alone.

Out of State Again

I knew my summer was going to include a lot of travel again. I've known this for month. It was actually supposed to be worse, with a conference and a Life Coaching seminar each month.

By postponing the coach training until 2012 I've pared things down pretty radically, but the travel still looms.

Looms pretty close if you take into account the fact that I leave for North Carolina really early tomorrow morning.

Oh yes. Tomorrow.

I've done the laundry. I've thought about grocery shopping. I've even lined up five days worth of playdates, childcare, and other entertainment.

And I'm still nervous about leaving.

Last year I left at least four times, skipping away to the other side of the country, without thinking twice about it. This year, after the unrest of the last few months, this departure feels momentous and fraught with worry.

I know they're going to be fine.

I know I have countless friends just standing by, waiting to jump in and help at the mere hint of a request.

I even know I have friends standing by, waiting to jump in whether or not there's a hint of a request.

And yet it feels so momentous, to take myself out of the equation for five days. I've been M's rock and the family's glue for two months. I've been there at every turn, to watch and step in, to manage everyone's emotions, needs, hopes, feelings and everything in between.

It's a good thing for me. I need to go. Need to get back into the groove of work. Network with bloggers and brands. Speak about something that means a lot to me. Remember what it's like to be Jessica Rosenberg, Professional Blogger, not just Jessica Rosenberg, aka Wife, Mommy, Caregiver.

It's a good thing for M and the kids. They need me to go. So they can remember that they know how to survive without me.

Our lives haven't stopped. They've just changed course. It's taken me two months to see that what I thought was a radical transformation, is really just going to be a shift.

I'm no longer scared to lose myself in this change. This trip (and the others planned for later in the summer) are just proof of my determination to make that be true.

These guys are going to be just fine. Now I need to take care of me.

6 Good Reasons To Skip the Picture People for Good

On Friday afternoon I brushed C and Little L's hair, made sure they were wearing cute dresses, and headed to the nearby mall for their annual-it's-time-for-Father's-Day photo shoot.

We had an appointment and we were a full week away from Father's Day so I thought we were in great shape to get in and get out fast.

HA!

I arrived 15 minutes early, moments after a woman who was explaining to the cashier that she was there way early for her appointment.


1st mistake - assuming that they'd honor my appointment time

45 minutes after our appointment time we were finally ushered into a photo studio (20 minutes after the family whose appointment was after ours). By now we'd been there for a full hour and the kids were bouncing off the walls. I was beyond grumpy. At no point did anyone apologize for the wait or thank us for our patience.

2nd mistake - Letting the photographer call the shots. 

She was bossy and had us pose in various ways, barely tolerating my advice and antics to get my kids to stop making fake "cheese" smiles and in 10 minutes we were done. I hate all the shots she took of the three of us.

3rd mistake - Assuming they'd listen to reason

So there I was, tired, cranky, and really done with trying to keep my active kids contained. So.... brilliant mom that I am... I realized that I could take them home and come back the next day without them to review the photos in peace and make smart choices. I could even look at the photos online and decide from the comfort of my couch!

No. According to the Picture People employee, that couldn't happen.

You see, there's a new policy at the Picture People.

They delete all photos at the end of the day. If you're a member they give you a full week. So generous.


4th mistake - Assuming that they'd be smart and modern.

Even better. They no longer give you the option to view your photos online or to buy prints at other stores.

So there I am, two hyper kids who've already been in the store for an hour and a half, being told we have to wait to see our photos, and that we have no option.

5th mistake - not admitting defeat.

I couldn't exactly admit defeat, so we stayed put.

And then more frustration ensued.

They no longer let you view the pictures on your own. The staffer has to sit there with you, manning the mouse, giving you the endless sales pitch. You know, despite the kids begging to go home, scaling your body like a jungle gym, and whining louder and louder.

I wasn't my most patient and nice.

You'd think the story ends there wouldn't you?

It doesn't.

We got our photos (after waiting more for them to be printed). Paid for the damn membership so I'd be able to come back and get prints for my mother-in-law and went home.

6th mistake - GOING BACK for more abuse. 

Yesterday I went back to get her prints.

You'd think that to simply get prints I would have been in and out in 10 minutes.

You'd be wrong.

It took over an hour for a staffer to be able to sit with me and look at the pictures. (You know, because God forbid I should be allowed to man a mouse by myself.) Took 20 minutes to go through the damn sales pitch again. Another 15 for them to print the photos. And yet another 10 for them to reprint the photos I had actually asked for.

When I finally left the store I could barely speak I was so mad.

Four hours to get pictures - from a place that promises photos in under an hour.
Staffers who were so frazzled from dealing with irate customers that they could no longer function correctly.
And photos that are cute... but nothing mind-blowing and that I overspent on because of the overbearing marketing tactics being used on me and the threat of imminent deletion. 
As for my increasingly irate tweets and Facebook messages? They've been completely ignored by the Picture People social media team.

SOLUTION TO THIS MADNESS

I've always resisted going to a professional photographer because it always seemed easier to just hop over to the mall and be done in under an hour. After 6 years of doing this annual shoot and watching the Picture People customer service and care go slowly from mediocre to bad to worse, I'm officially done and telling everyone I can.

Skip the Picture People. Find a local photographer. Give one of your community members the business and take back the joy that should be a part of a family photo shoot. You'll thank me in the end.

The trip that taught me better

On the map it didn't look so far, maybe 3, 4 hours tops. The girls and I could handle that easily. And so I bought the tickets.

Instead of flying to North Carolina we'd fly to Washington D.C., rent a car, and, after a night spent with a friend, we'd drive down to the Outer Banks.

I can hear you laughing from over here.

It took us two hours just to get out of D.C. and another 4 to get through Virginia and most of North Carolina.

See, that's where I made a slight map reading mistake. Instead of being able to hop over to the Outer Banks from the top tip of North Carolina, you have to drive to the very bottom of the state and all the way up the outside of the state. All this with a 2 and 4-year-old in the car.

They were troopers. Amazing passengers. They napped part of the way and sat patiently in their car seats for the rest. I was closer to crying than they ever got.

After an all too brief vacation we had to make the trip back. This time instead of the clock, we raced a hurricane up the coast.

I have no recollection of the trip back down and up through North Carolina and Virginia and just a hazy recollection of the night we spent with a different set of friends.

And then my memory comes into sharp focus.

First there was the flight that was incredibly delayed. Then there was the announcement that no, the flight wasn't delayed, but instead was leaving from the other end of the airport. Then there was me, toddler under one arm, stroller in front, carry-on precariously balanced on the stroller, and preschooler running beside me. Then there was the three of us arriving, entirely out of breath preschooler in the stroller, bag strapped to my back and toddler on my hip only to learn that, after all, the flight was still delayed, for two hours now.

The new flight was scheduled to arrive in Arizona exactly five minutes after our flight to California was scheduled to leave. And no, because the delay was being caused by a natural occurrence (damn hurricane finally catching up with me) the airline wouldn't pay for our hotel room.

That's when I hit my limit. I was tired. I had been responsible for my two kids for a week. I'd been traveling for days and sharing my bed with a squirmy kid - sometimes two - for the entire duration of our trip. I sat on the floor, called my husband, and almost wept.

We watched the sun set over the airport and I did my best to keep the kids from falling asleep on me and when the lovely air steward tried to tell me that families could no longer board early I only growled at him a little. And when the way nicer air hostess told me that she'd make the whole flight stay seated so we could make a mad dash for our next flight I didn't jump out of my chair to hug her. And I swear that I only shed a tiny tear after we made it to our seats and they slammed the plane door shut behind us.

I haven't traveled alone with the girls since that day. This summer I'm contemplating it again, but this time I think I'll plan a little more carefully or at least get a little help.

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Fast Paced Movie Sequence

When I was a teen my sister was ill, really ill, and for a long time we lived in that state of limbo that's filled with doctors' appointments, hospital visits, and waiting. Always with the waiting. Waiting for results, for healing, for tests, for everything.

I was old enough to be home on my own and my parents, rightfully preoccupied with my baby sister's health, left me to my own devices a lot those months.

I'm no rebel so basically what that meant was that I'd wake up, go to school, go to my after school activities, come home, walk the dogs, and spend the rest of the evening sitting on the couch blasting Vivaldi on the stereo.

Four Seasons: Winter. On a loop. (Yes. I'm a dork. Now you know.)

All I remember is sitting there, letting the music wash over me, wishing that life were really like the movies. You know? That fast paced sequence when the music speeds up and the scenes start flashing by?

It never did though. In life you have to go through each and every day. There's no whizzing through the slow bits of the story. No learning a foreign language over the course of one soon-to-be-a-hit pop tune. No magical  healing over the course of a pretty video montage.

These last two months I've desperately wanted to speed time up again. To a place where had answers and solutions. To a place where we were once again in control of our lives.

Last week M and I played hooky for an evening. We took the kids to their grandparents who had agreed to watch them under the assumption that we'd be going to see something artsy and educational.

Instead we went to see X-Men First Class, which was made of awesome.

I desperately wanted to love it. (I'm a comic book movie junkie.) But once I let myself fall into the plot and the special effects I found that I truly was loving it.

It was everything my life isn't. Fantastic in every way. (Fantastic as in made up of fantasy, just so we're clear.)

For two brief hours I suspended reality and lived in a world where people can fly, hear other people's thoughts, change on a whim. The plot was amazingly well acted, but since it was a prequel, the end was predictable to a point. And yet, it still managed to surprise and delight me.

Not everyone who is evil is really evil. Not everyone who is good is really good. And sometimes even when you fulfill what's been written, it doesn't have to be the way everyone assumed it would be.

My little sister defied the odds and has grown to be a most inspiring and incredible person who runs three day long relay races and marathons when she's not working as a nurse and studying to be a nurse practitioner.

We made it through the slow painful times without the benefit of movie effects and we didn't let the script dictate how the story would end.

We're going to do it again. Only this time I'm going to try not to wish away the in between time. There are memories to be made while we wait for the answers and the solutions. There are lives to be lived. It would be a shame to wish away the good at the same time as the challenging parts of it all.

After all, sometimes it's the fast paced movie sequence that I remember best of all long after the movie has ended.

Milestone Photos: First Steps

I have a confession to make. I missed my second daughter's first steps.

I was in the house with her. It was a sunny weekend afternoon. I fact, I was very focused on her seeing as I was running around making cupcakes and doing last second prep for her first birthday party. But I wasn't actually focused on her.

If we're being brutally honest, when she took that momentous first step, while frosting said cupcakes, I was on the phone with a really old friend who I hadn't talked to in years and who clearly really needed to talk. So, when M called to me from the living room, I might have said something like:

"Yeah, yeah. Great. I'll catch her next first steps." Cruel mommy that I am!

But come on, we all know how it is. Kids do something for the "first" time, then they don't do it again for weeks and they do it all over again.

Little L, true to form, didn't take any more "first steps" until we went to Lake Tahoe with the family a few weeks later.

That time, as though to prove the point that I should really have put down the phone and run over with a camera back on her birthday, she took her second "first steps" on the beach, in the buff.

I have the video and all the pictures you could want of that precious moment. But, (and really, isn't this the biggest irony in a blogging mom's life?) she's not wearing anything other than a large amount of sand mixed with cookie crumbs and the cutest too-big baseball cap you could imagine.

And no, you can't see the photos. Or the video footage, which is, if I may say so, adorable. Because, you know, I draw the line at not showing my kids in the buff online.

Standing... just not walking.

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Please note: This post is a sponsored post in conjunction with the BabyCenter Blog Network. The photos and thoughts contained here are all mine.

Emerging from the fog

I spent the month of April in shock and the month of May in a fog. I got up every morning, had breakfast, got the kids dressed, took them to school or daycare, made sure they were clean and happy. Then I sat down... and I must have done work.

Blog posts have been written. Emails have been answered. Contracts have been read, signed, sent back.

I wrote my column for both months so clearly I was able to interview people. And there's been relatively little screaming about things that have fallen through the cracks.

Heck, I even managed to pay the school fees and stuff relatively on time.

What's amazing about all that is that I barely remember any of it.

Last night I opened a Facebook message requiring me to fill out a form. It was sent a full month ago. I could have sworn that I only just received it.

Today we ran out of cat food. Again, I could have sworn that I bought a month's supply just last week.

I remember April. I'd love to forget it, but I remember it clearly.

It's May I seem to have lost.

I know that somewhere in the middle I frantically cleaned the house so we could host C's 6th birthday party. Other than that, all I can remember is spending a lot of time staring at my computer wondering what I should be doing. I went to bed early a lot. You know, because I never was able to remember what I should be doing.

Who knows how long that would have lasted if a friend hadn't flown cross-country for a visit.

She swooped in last Sunday, and I'll admit, I felt some panic at having to entertain someone in the sluglike state I was stuck in. But, as true childhood friends are wont to do, she just came and was perfect.

She baked us cookies. She played with the kids. She talked about anything and everything. She hung curtains in the dining room and kitchen and even helped me attempt to replace the old rug in the living room. (M hated the one we bought, so back to Ikea it went.)

It was so... normal.

I took her to the airport on Friday and was able to spend the weekend actually relaxing, not just going through the motions.

Yesterday I woke up feeling a bit more in control. The to do list I crafted in the shower was less about survival and more about getting ahead. The conversations I had during the day were less about rehashing things that can't be changed and more about what could be tackled next.

Three months ago I felt on top of my world and at the top of my game. Getting back up after having the rug pulled out from under me has felt both pointless and impossible.

This week I'm picking myself up and dusting myself off.

I don't know what the future is going to bring. I know I'm not going to keep my positive outlook every day. But today? This week? I'm feeling strong enough to start moving forward again.

Style-astrophe

Anyone who sees me on a daily basis will tell you that my personal sense of style is... jeans, a nice(ish) t-shirt, and some sort of drapey sweater.

The sweaters are the latest addition, made possible by my Eddie Bauer obsession. The jeans + t-shirt look dates back to college. I was never a girl who dressed carefully, paying close attention to fashion, style, or even what other people around me were wearing. Even before kids I chose comfort over style.

Always.

Shoes. Shirts. Party outfits.

Whatever it is, no matter how cute it makes me look, if it's not comfortable I won't wear it. I'll buy it, but it'll sit in my closet, always ignored in favor of something more comfortable.

This summer, I'm attending three blog conferences, speaking at two. It's a month out from the first and I'm starting to realize that my usual go-to outfit might just not cut it. Not if I'm going to be standing in front of a crowd.

And yet, the mere thought of going shopping makes me want to curl up on my couch in my sweats.

I'm a hopeless cause. In stores I always gravitate to the same exact things - clothes that will be comfortable while hiding the parts of my physique I'd rather not draw attention to.

I'm in dire need of a style make-over.

I won't look hideous if I don't get some help. I just know that it wouldn't take much to help me both look better and feel more self confident. I fully believe I can find a functional, comfortable style that fits my 30-something, mom of two girls, who still is somewhat cute persona. I just need some style tips from the right person. (With a little luck the awesome people behind Mom's Fashion File and their agents can help me at BlogHer!)