Since this is my first post, I'm going to give you some context about my family and life. My husband, Aaron, is in his first year of residency to be a doctor. He is also in the army. First year residents (or interns) have extremely demanding schedules so I pretty much just do everything on my own--travel, cook, clean, see friends, visit family, etc. I adore him, but since he's not around much he won't make too many appearances on the blog. We have two pretty rad kids that I've chosen to stay home with for now. Charlotte (whom we call Chuck) will be 5 years old in August, and is extremely precocious, and always good for a laugh. (She literally just came into my room at midnight,crawled in bed with me and said "what are you doing?" I said, "just working on a blog post." She replied, "Oh, is this to help you learn to be a better mama?" [apparently she's noticed me reading my stack of parenting and self-help books recently]). She adores animals of all kinds (yes, even bugs!), and wants to be a momma when she grows up more than anything else. (She recently told my grandma that "kids like Finn are so much trouble! That's why I'm only going to have babies!") Good luck with that Chuck!
Our son, Finn (or Foofer), will be 3 in August, (Yes, they are 12 days shy of two years apart) and he is my Jekyll and Hyde child. Seriously, he will be snuggling and kissing all over my face one minute, and then screaming at me in a massive meltdown the next minute. (Now you understand why I've been diving into parenting and self-help books.) He's also obsessed with pirates, and we use that as leverage for pretty much EVERYTHING! "Finn, you'd better eat your green beans otherwise you can't be a strong pirate!" "Finn, all pirates brush their teeth!" "Finn, you have to wear shoes. Pirates always wear shoes!" You get the idea. A couple days ago I was on a FB page for wives of medical residents. (Yes, I'm on several of those because it helps me feel like my life is more normal because I see hundreds of other women who live kind of like widows, but their husbands just happen to actually be alive.) One girl posted "after you've been a single parent for several days, what is your theme song?" All these girls posted cute inspirational ones like "I will get back up again" from Trolls, Kelly Clarkson "stronger", R. Kelly "I believe I can fly" (which whoever seriously has that as their theme song on a Wednesday when hubby has been MIA and you've been on mom duty since Sunday is either a liar or a freaking lunatic!!!), and Queen's classic "we will rock you" were a few. Want to know what mine was? DMX "Up in Here". You know "y'all gun make me lose my mind, up in here up in here". In my defense, it really was on a Wednesday, and Aaron had left before the kids got up, and hadn't been home early enough to see the kids before bed since Sunday so I had been flying solo for three days. (Not to mention our house is still not unpacked since we moved to Texas so things are chaotic and unorganized.) As I was getting ready for bed I reflected on my day and what could be my theme song for today, and you know what I came up with? A whole lot of cray cray! Seriously, I start out the day like Mary Poppins where I pop out of bed happy as a clam like Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray singing "good morning Baltimore", and by the end of the day I'm embodying Meredith Brooks' 1997 song that is a 5 letter word that starts with a B. But how do I go from happy to crappy in 9 hours? But then I started to break it down and realize that between 8 and 5, there's A LOT that happens. In the morning I do a pretty good job....unless we are running late for the gym. Either way, once we are in the car I'm like Katy Perry singing "Roar". I'm excited, the sun is shining, I'm ready to get in a good workout, and everyone is alive. Then, I'm at the gym and I'm definitely rocking some girl power jam in my head. Afterward, kids have swimming lessons, then we head home. Once we are at home I'm trying to feed them, clean, cook, make calls, pay bills and after countless interruptions I feel like my theme song is "Whataya want from me?" by Adam Lambert. Don't get me wrong, there's some Pharrell "happy" going on as well. Then, the witching hour arrives which means we need to have dinner, baths, brush teeth, read books, pray and then bed. This window of time between 5:30 and 7 is the longest ever! I truly think it was cursed and that's why it's called the witching hour! And this is a colorful time for music. It starts out with me trying to keep the kids on task and they're off with Queen singing "I want to ride my bicycle" and "jump around" by House of Pain. Then, I'm frustrated and so I might be singing "basket case" by Greenday, and might start to raise my voice which makes me feel bad so I start feeling some Justin Bieber "Sorry", and they look sad and are singing R.E.M. "Everybody hurts" (Seriously, Finn started singing that when he was in time out the other day). But without fail, once they're in bed all sweet smelling I bolt out of there with some Black Eyed Peas "Party Rocking in the House tonight!" hahaha just kidding. It is so crazy, but once they're in bed asleep It's like I'm simultaneously singing Kelly Clarkson's "my life would suck without you" and Olivia Newton John "I honestly love you". And the really ironic thing is that I'm excited for the next morning to roll out of bed like Tracy Turnblad, and see their sweet faces again. So, why do I do this? Why isn't it the negative moments that resonate with me? Well, I've realized that just because I might be feeling a song during the day it doesn't necessarily mean that it's my theme song. We all have multiple interactions, experiences, and events that we encounter in a day. All of which might affect the mood to our day by adding some music (for better or for worse). I've had many days where all I sang was a sad song, but now I'm finding that I have more choice in what I want my theme song to be. When Molly, Emma and I were talking about starting this blog I found this anonymous quote that said, "Spread happiness like nutella: nice and thick!" I know the days I had a sad theme song I wasn't in the mood to spread much happiness (although I did eat my fair share of nutella). One of my favorite songs of all time is "here comes the sun" by the Beatles. I love that it's a song about hope and anticipation. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I can't tell you if Finn is going to throw a fit at breakfast and make us late for the gym, or if Chuck is going to interrupt me a million times while I'm talking to the garage door company, or the kids are going to trash the play room and track a huge mess down the hallway while I'm preparing for guests (actually, i'm 99% sure that they will in fact do that). But I do know that there's always hope for a better tomorrow, hope for smiles, hope for sun, hope that I can do and be better, and hope for goodness. We all have different songs that resonate with us depending on our season of life. Try to find what your theme song is, and rock it! Enjoy the rest of your week. We hope you'll come back for No Makeup Monday. Comment below to let us know what your song is.
5 Comments
Laura
7/31/2017 12:28:51 pm
Sam,
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Anonymous
7/31/2017 01:13:39 pm
Thanks so much Laura. It's so true. And there are always good songs to be found too...some days you jut have to look a little harder. <3
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Margie
7/31/2017 02:20:08 pm
Sam,
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Anonymous
8/3/2017 11:34:24 pm
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Margie
8/4/2017 10:58:22 am
Thank you! Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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who we areSpread the Good: Three sisters embracing the human experience, ups and downs included, inviting others to join the celebration.
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