Pop the bubble

Sometimes I feel like I live in a bubble.  I zip around my town and surrounding towns in my car with my kids, dropping off and picking up, running errands, seeing friends, living life.  Everything is neat in its place.  My feathers don’t get ruffled much.  You get yourself into a tidy routine and then you assume positions.  I like it.  It’s safe and natural.  It’s life.  We all have our routines and we make it work, whether we trek into work by bus, or stay home with your kids, we all fall into our prospective bubbles and places.  And I float around bouncing from one thing to another waving to familiar faces and bursting with protected situations.  Bounce to the gym.  Bounce to school.  Bounce back home.

It’s funny because I recently went to get myself a wax and spoke to the owner of the place.  I walked into a conversation about her discussing her “bubble.”  “I was just thinking about my bubble,” I said.  And I was.  I was thinking about my neat and tidy bubble.  And sometimes it is nice if you pop the damn thing.  There is nothing wrong with being safe in your life and your routine, whatever it is.  But there is something liberating about leaving it for a moment.

A few weeks ago, I went out with some friends on a Friday evening.  We took the train into New York City for a night out.  I used to feel like Penn Stations was a second home but it has felt like years since I’ve been there.  I walked out of the train and couldn’t keep my eyes still.  OVERSTIMULATED! 

Look there!  Do you see that?  Is he asleep?  Should we give him money?

It’s like I was 12 years old or something.  I didn’t’ have enough eyes to see everything around me. 

I got so used to my little bubble that I was struck hard by my surroundings, especially the man doing gymnastics through Penn Stations. “Watch him,” I whispered to my friend sipping our roadies in brown paper bags.  I watched the men and women in their suits and business attire breezing by living a different life from mine.  I saw a couple kissing in a corner, a mom carting her baby in backpack; I saw it and I liked the view. It was so fun to step outside and experience something other than filling sippy cups and making sure I have enough diapers in the house.  We went to a beautiful rooftop bar and clicked our martini glasses in solidarity.  Moms are out in our high heeled shoes.  Click, clank, click clank.  The little 20 something’s need to watch out for us because when we go, we go hard.  We drank, we danced, and we stumbled home.  We stepped out of our routine and away from our bubble for a night, for a change in scenery.  We had fun.  And then we went home, woke up to our children, and assumed our positions.  But somehow, my life felt even more pleasant after a moment away.  It gave me a little more perspective.  Yes, I can be a mom but I can also be me.  Yes I can be serious and teach lessons, but I can also yell at the DJ for not playing MY SONG!

We might be married and have children, but we also have lives to live outside that bubble.  We have been stretched out physically and stretched thin mentally.  Perhaps some of us have stretch marks under our spaghetti strapped tops to prove it but it only tells us that we have truly experienced life.  We have been there, where they are.  We have done it.  We have survived through it and ended up where all those young kids want to end up, like us, with children.  Well, most of them anyway.  There is nothing more beautiful and over stimulating than that.

In the end, I nursed a hangover for 8 days which turned into a very bad cold on day 9.  But, I did it with a smile on my face; happy to have popped that bubble and stepped out of it, if only for one night.

 

Unkempt

I don’t shave my legs enough.  It is just one of those things I just don’t do well.  You know why, I’ll finally get the kids to bed and then realize that I have to go outside and put away the stroller or the wagon.  Then I’ll find a sippy cup somewhere in the grass with old milk crusted up and ants crawling in it.  Then I’ll have to deal with that.  I’ll walk inside, defeated.  Then, I’ll finally drag myself into the shower, (because I didn’t have time during the day) look over at the razor and give it a swift flick of my wrist.  No.  Too much effort.  But, I’ll pay for it later.  Like yesterday, I was at a gym class wearing short Capri work-out pants and doing some move the wrong way.  The instructor came up to fix my legs and accidentally (I’m sure) brushed up against my hairy leg.  I went still.  No, please don’t.  I know she saw it or felt it and me and my bright red face focused on that for the next 38 minutes of the class.  Why oh why didn’t I just shave my damn legs??  She must think I am the most unkempt, messy, disheveled human being, a sore excuse for a woman.   How on earth does she even drag herself from her house, she’ll think.  

Is this where I am?  Too lazy to shave my legs? 

If you have been following ‘growing ladies,’ for a while, you know that I went through a really, ugly phase when my second baby was born.  I mean the whole nine; spare tire, crusty finger nails, gray roots…the whole shebang.  And although I am slowly but surely creeping myself out of there, I am fully aware that I am not always up to par.  Who knew we would have to do so much to look good?  Along with shaving our legs, we have to wax, paint, gloss, color, cleanse, and brush.  Who has time to go from here to there and get it all done?  I sure don’t.  So then I’ll find myself lacking somewhere, usually it is my hairy eyebrows.  I’ll look in my rearview mirror and see it in full force.  Drat!

We are woman and we need to feel good about ourselves.  And I will never say anything against that.  EVER!  If my friend wants to drop off her kids with me to get herself a wax, DO IT!  We need to look good for ourselves.  If not, what is the point??!  One of my friends recently said and I quote, “this isn’t my time, this time is all for the kids.”  I couldn’t have disagreed more.  I completely respected her opinion and honestly, more power to her for putting her all into her children, but at the same time, I just think that is no way to live. This is a time for our kids; true…but it will NEVER NOT be about us.  Did you catch that double negative?  Even though we have kids, it should still be about us.  We need TLC too.

I mean, it isn’t like we are walking around like beauty queens here.  At least, I’m not!  We are doing what we have to do to be acceptable.  Go into the world and see people, acceptable.  But, we have to do it for ourselves.  If not, we just don’t feel as good as we can feel about ourselves and then, we won’t be as good as we can as moms.  It’s true.  Full circle.  It all ties into each other.  Look good, feel good, and be good.  Truth.

Look, I have daughters and I’m not saying that we need to FOCUS on beauty.  Not at all.  But, we can focus on being our best selves.  I will also say that I don’t want to walk around with bushy eyebrows.  The amazon look is really not in my ‘acceptable’ column.  If that means getting myself a bi-weekly eyebrow wax, I WILL NOT feel guilty about it. 

Do not feel guilty about taking time for you, whatever it is that makes YOU feel acceptable as a human being.  Do not feel guilty about going for a run, spending an hour with a book, sneaking off for a drink with friends.  Do not feel guilty about living your life.  After all, I don’t want to be 94 years old and asking myself, when did I have a moment for me?!  I want to be 94 years old and say, I had a good life, filled with good people, and felt good about myself during it.  My 94 year old grandmother (in law) was just put into a nursing home/rehab facility for a few weeks and wanted to get her hair done. What a heartwarming thought.  That was always what she did to feel good, always.  I said to my husband, “that is so wonderful and beautiful.”  After raising 7 children, there will never be a time when she doesn’t deserve that.  There will never be a time when any of us moms, don’t deserve to look and feel and BE our very best. 

I’m shaving my legs tonight!

Unspoken Truths

Motherhood is hard.  There are so many silent rules to abide by; so many unspoken truths, judgments.

If everyone just went with their gut and trusted their instincts, everything would be a heck of a lot easier that is for sure.  If most everyone accepted you for what you were, even easier.  But life is not like that.  And when something goes haywire, people are there…waiting for your actions and ready to go home and tell so and so, how they would have done it differently.  Can you believe she did that?  I would NEVER do such a thing….

Judgment.  It doesn’t end when you get your diploma senior year of high school.  It follows us everywhere.  It continues on through your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and so on.  You know when it pops up, this ugly judgment, when you have a bad moment.  The times you feel like a failure, when you feel like you are the only one in the history of the world who has ever been in this moment.  You know people are watching your every move, ready to pounce; claws sharp. SCRATCH!

I had a moment like that the first day of school.  My 4 year old was nervous to say the least; she gave herself a wicked stomach ache from those nerves.  She was quiet about it.  But, I knew.  I tried a little reverse psychology.  You know, if your friend Olivia cries, you should try and make her feel better, ie. You won’t have a chance to cry because you will be taking care of your friend. 

Good plan?  Nope.  Well of course I dropped her off to the worst tantrum in human history.  Kicking, screaming, and flailing arms and legs, loud cries, heartbreak.  I couldn’t walk away.  I felt like the only mother in human history to have to deal with something like that, EVER.  I know I’m not.  But, I felt it.  I felt like the worst mom.  Of course my daughter isn’t flexible and adaptable.  Of course.  I’m a failure.  Deep down, I know it isn’t true.  But, I walked home crying.  I usually never cry.  But, I threw myself a really awesome, well deserved pity party, wine included.  Did the other moms judge me?  Who knows?  A few are friends and I know they didn’t, but perhaps the others?!  The truth is, I judged myself, harshly.

At the end of the day, are we are own worst critic?  As moms, we don’t need others to judge us, because we do an amazingly stellar job doing it ourselves.  Some moms will judge us.  But the good news is, we do NOT have to be friends with them.  We do not have to accept it as our truth.  We do NOT have to care.  Judgment is here to stay, it is everywhere.  And sometimes people try to expose what is wrong with you because they cannot handle what is right!  It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO, a housewife, a doctor, a lawyer, a writer, it is always there.  People will always have an opinion about others.  And some people will bring down others to make themselves feel better.  Human nature.

BUT, there is always support.  As moms, that is OUR universal unspoken truth.  Other moms will support us.  Yes, they will.  The good ones. Those are the ones we can socialize with and keep close.  Nobody is sitting on their high horse waving down at the crowd with a ‘best mom ever’ sash waving in the wind for good measure.  If they are, then I don’t think they are the best mom.  The best moms are humble.  The best moms will always be striving to do the right thing and to try and be better.  That mom on top of that horse will come crashing down the minute she realizes that she will be up there alone. 

Down here, the rest of us will have hard moments, sulk a little, and then get up the next day with renewal to try again.  We have to.  We must keep going for our children and for ourselves.  And the text messages I got from the moms who are supportive are the ones I hold dear.  And the daggers thrown at me today or in the future will be bounced off my titanium shell.  We are too old for that.  We are in this together.  We judge ourselves enough.  We, as moms, need each other.  Remember that, when you are the one that feels like a failure.  You are not alone.  There will be someone, another mom perhaps, who will lift you right up again and tell you that she will cry right there with you.  

Today I woke up to a brand new day.

 

 

 

 

Low Expectations

Everything sounds good on paper.

When I was pregnant with our first child, my husband would act all excited and pretend to throw a fake baby in the air.  I would laugh but then hesitate and say, “You know you can’t do that with a newborn.”  He would snicker and say, “of course.”  But then I would look at him with a sideways glance.  Hmmm, I wasn’t so sure he knew.  I don’t think he really knew what to do with a baby.  And, I don’t think he knew what on earth was coming. 

Fast forward to now, 2 kids later (ages 4 and 2), and we have realized that life with small kids is never what it seems.  It is harder than we thought and more mentally draining than we could have ever imagined.  We realize now, going into anything with children, is making sure you start the process with nothing more than low expectations.

I think it took a little while for my husband to understand this rule.  He would come to me, guns a BLAZING with plans.  Zoo, amusement parks, water parks, sleepovers…you name it.  “Ummm,” I would respond, “well, you see…” how can I say this?? “I’m not quite sure it would work well.” 

“How will we know if we don’t try,” he would say.  “Right.  Ok then.  Let’s try it.”  You’ll see… (Insert evil laugh here).

The Zoo – kids complained that they were tired 5 minutes into the walk.  The choo choo train wait was 10 minutes and 10 minutes too long.  The little one was scared of the animals.  “Let’s go see the bear,” I would say with fake amusement in my voice.  “I don’t want to see the bear,” my 4 year old would say.  “Mama, no bear,” my 2 year old would repeat.  “Look at those turtles, aren’t they big,” desperation in my tone, “Yes, they are too big.”  BOLLOCKS!  And why even bring a stroller.  Nobody wants to sit.  Everyone wants to run in different directions.  When I finally got my 2 year old actually IN the stroller, she wanted the umbrella up and then down, up and down… and then I put it up and her finger got caught.  We left the zoo screaming.  FAIL!

The amusement park – We traveled 3 hours to go to a place called Dutch Wonderland.  My 4 year old got scared and cried hysterically on the second ride.  And when she starts…

The waits were all 20 minutes or more.  The carousel was too fast. (Said 4-year old).  The amusement park princess had a dress that wasn’t pink enough.  Huh?  The day was too long.  The only thing my little one wanted was an ice pop.  “MAMA, ICE POP, MAMA ICE POP!” We could have done this same song and dance at home?!  My husband left the park stating, “I guess we aren’t ready for Disney.”  No.  Not ready.  “That wasn’t what I thought it would be,” he finally said.  I mentally did a cartwheel of glee but inside I wish the lesson could have been learned with a 5 minute drive. 

Plans…with kids…never go as you imagine them.  When you go in to these plans, you must know that you cannot go in to them with high expectations.  Expect freak outs.  Expect tantrums.  Expect the worst.  Then, when it goes well, it feels like the GREATEST DAY EVER!!!!  Sometimes however, it is best to skip the plans, stay home, and play with crayons and paper.  Sometimes they have the best time rolling in the grass.  Often enough, we don’t need these BIG plans to make our kids happy.  We just need to BE WITH THEM.  That seems to do the trick.  Because if we think we are going to be the ones singing, skipping, and smiling while we lick a lollipop to go see the bears, we are going to be sadly mistaken. 

Sometimes the best plans are the plans that involve little planning.  Those moments that we find mediocre are actually the moments that are shaping their childhood.  Playing with the hose for an hour while we clap…sitting at the table talking about the best parts of our day…laying on the floor in our dining room, side by side looking up to see rainbows reflected on the ceiling.  These are the happiest moments.  No money involved.  No long 3 hour trips.  Just us.  No expectations.

 

Having it All

If you missed it on http://www.ridgewoodmoms.com/#!mommywood/c1ex9  Here it is...

 

 

The age old question arises…can the woman and/or the mom have it all?

I’m sitting here writing this with a pile of laundry on the bed next to me, literally a pile; little toddler bathing suits and loose socks missing the match.  The nitty gritty of life is exactly that, but the truth is, even when women have it all, they still have to get through the pile of laundry.  I guess if you truly do have it all, you just have more laundry to do.

Moms these days have it rough!  We live in a day where we aren’t enough UNLESS…

Unless we have the family and career…

Unless we have 4 children who all become doctors…

Unless we can cook a stew and stir jam for 10 hours…

Unless we have it all, know it all, and do it all, we aren’t enough.  Or at least, that is what we are made to feel.  That, it seems, is what other websites and news reports are here to tell us.  I don’t buy it!  It’s HOGWASH!

The problem is we get constant reminders every day. Betty Sue had a birthday party for her 6 year old with a CAMEL.  Can you believe it?  Jane over there ordered the bouncy house extravaganza for her daughter’s party, and she works full time as a corporate lawyer, can you imagine?  Pfft…I didn’t even blow dry my hair today!  “How do they do it,” you ask yourself.  They aren’t DOING it.  You know what they are doing, playing up their strengths.  They know what they can do and they do those things well.  It doesn’t mean they are better!!  Good for them for knowing what they can do well.  Let’s applaud them.

We all have strengths and weaknesses.  I know I am not a natural born Host.  I’m not.  I would rather walk across hot rocks than host a party.  I do it, yes, but people aren’t going home talking about my hosting capabilities in their gossip circles. “Did you see Noreen’s homemade ice sculpture etched into a swan and freshly baked cupcakes in the form of Elmo?”  Not happening. I am aware of it.  You won’t find me playing that up.  But, I know I can sit with a friend at a table with a cup of tea and listen.  I play that up.  I’m a good problem solver.

I know I don’t always feed my children organic meals even though I would like to.  But, I will sing to them while they are on the swing and they love it.  Fine by me.

I’m aware of what gives me the gold star and what makes me exit stage left. 

We all have hopes and dreams.  We are all here to find our purpose.  So, what does having it all mean?  Does it mean we have to work 9-5, come home to bathe our children, eat a healthy organic meal and then collapse on the bed, stating we are too tired for anything else?  Wink wink.  Or, does it mean having 2.5 children and staying at home to cook well balanced meals and dress our kids in proper attire, taking them to the park and chasing them around?  What does it mean?   It can mean both or neither.  It is different for every single mom out there, every single person, every single WOMAN!

Having it all means knowing who we are.  It means finding balance.  End.of.story.

It DOES NOT have to be only if you can make strawberry jam during naptime.  It DOES NOT mean you have to wear a fitted pink dress and an apron while you host a birthday party extravaganza.  Unless that is what you love to do and what you do best?!  Get it. 

Knowing who you are and what you are here for is empowering.  Knowing your strengths and understanding your weaknesses; contributing to the greater good; raising your children to the BEST of YOUR ability, that is it.  We can’t worry about Betty Sue with the perfectly highlighted streaks in her hair.  We can’t look at Jane with her perfect party planning capabilities.  Maybe they are dead fish in the sack?  Or maybe they have closets cluttered to the tippy top?!  Their weaknesses are hidden under a heavy quilt of self preservation.  It’s fine.  We don’t have to know them.  Who cares! 

We can’t look at any of it.  We need to look at ourselves. 

What do you bring to the table as a mom?  What do you offer as a woman? 

If you offer yourself in all of your wonderful glory, you are offering enough.  You are enough! 

If you know who you are, where you are going, and what makes you tick, whether you have 1 child, 3, or a boat load, then I truly believe (piles of laundry or not) that you are here in real life, living, loving, and in turn… having it all.

 

 

 

The Highlight Reel

I remember when my first daughter was born.  After a few weeks or so, I needed to get out and get an eyebrow wax.  It was such a small thing on one hand but an enormous one on the other.  I told my husband that I would be out for 15-20 minutes.  He told me that he was taking a walk with our newborn in the stroller.  “Ok,” I said, “but it is almost feeding time, she might get fussy on the walk.”  “She will be fine,” he responded.  “It might not be the right time,” I said with one last ditch effort, and continued, “I’ll be home in 15 minutes and then feed her, and then we can go out for walk together.”  “Nah,” he finalized, “she will be fine.  I want to take my daughter for a nice walk” Uh huh….

After a quick 15 minutes, I was on my way home.  As I turned toward our block, I spotted my husband walking our brand new daughter in the stroller, but he wasn’t walking, he was running.  He was pushing the stroller and running toward our house.  I laughed out loud wishing there was someone else there to witness it.  I knew she was wailing and I knew his idyllic image of a beautiful walk with his new baby was squashed like pulp. 

We live in a new world; a world where we experience everyone’s best moments.  We used to just be able to gawk at Hollywood on Oscar night.  We would see their beautiful gowns and beautiful relationships and wish we could live just a moment in their lives.  We would see a flash of perfection knowing it wasn’t real.  Now, we are envying Joe Shmoe, a passing college acquaintance when he puts an image on Instagram of him smiling with a shot of tequila in his hand…living the life, thinking THAT is reality.  Wait…we think….why aren’t we having a shot of tequila, living the life, at 5:00 pm on a Tuesday?  My daughters are screaming for dinner at that very moment, hanging off my leg.  Argh! No, what we see is the highlight reel.  We see ideals.  FLASH!  We see his best foot forward.  FLASH!

We don’t see him take the shot and cry because he is alone and the only way he knows how to cope is to drink.

We all have images of how life should be.  Are we in the perfect marriage, do we have the perfect children, the perfect group of friends, the perfect life??  The answer is probably an astounding no to most, if not all…for most people.  Nothing is perfect.  Couples fight, children cry, friends’ gossip, and life is never what you think it would be.  It’s hard to notice it because it seems like everyone else is living the “perfect” life putting picture after picture on Facebook and Instagram of where they are when they are having that ideal moment.  What we don’t realize is that they are ONLY posting their best times, and they are NOT posting every minute of every day, the pebbles and stones of life.  We are getting the BEST moments, the moments that they need to boast and that is ok.  We just need to be aware of it.  For singles, it’s at the bar with a group of friends.  Cheese! For couples, it is dining at a fancy restaurant sharing a bottle of wine with their faces pressed together, for parents it is at Disney with their 3 perfect kids hugging Mickey Mouse.  Week after week, month after month we are seeing only the best.  We don’t see that same group of friends passed out on couches from too much drinking and then a splitting headache hangover the next day.  We don’t see them walking the walk of shame, lonely.  We don’t see the couple fighting over which restaurant to choose, walking away from each other in a huff silently cursing one another.  We don’t see the kids screaming and rolling around the ground at Disney.  It is what we don’t see, that we should really look at.   To truly understand reality, we have to recognize the in-betweens.

I think of the highlight reel and then I think about my husband’s walk with our newborn.  I know he thought it would go differently.  I know his image was squashed in an instant.  I know he saw other Dad’s pushing the strollers thinking that would be him now; an easy, relaxing stroll with his baby.  I know reality is never like the images we have in our head or what we get from everyone else.  Reality has grit.  Ideals are just that, ideals; something to hang on to when we are having a bad moment.  If only my children wouldn’t cry in public, if only my husband would take out the garbage, if only my wife could be a better cook, if only I could have a life like my coworker from my first job, she seems to be living.  If only my family was like _____’s family, it looks like her kids are always happy??!!

No.  Reality is quite different.  That coworker could be having money trouble; the perfect family could be battling a serious issue.  We see what we see.  But, let’s be real here.  We don’t see reality. 

We make our choices.  We decide what to do with our lives.  We are here in this moment, because we chose our path, our reality.      

Why don’t we make the most of it?  Why don’t we ignore everyone else and what they are doing and live our lives the way we know how?  Live in the moment.  Choose to be happy.  Understand reality.  Be aware of the highlight reel.  Be ok with the garbage piling up, your children crying, and knowing this is your life.  But, being happy, because you only get one life and it might not go as planned and it might not seem better than someone else’s, but it’s yours.  Love it. 

After I fed my newborn baby, my husband and I went out for that walk.  We walked to Starbucks and around our neighborhood.  We walked for 2 hours.  We had a fantastic time as a new family.

You survive the grit because it only makes you appreciate the sweet that much more.  That is reality.  My husband got his ideal walk.  If we snapped a picture and posted it, we would look like we didn’t have a problem in the world.  You wouldn’t see him running with a wailing newborn, you would see our ideal moment from our highlight reel.  But, we didn’t take a picture, because some things are amazing and personal…

A day at the park with smiles and laughter, dinner as a family when my husband gets home early, getting to the bottom of the laundry, seeing a friend at the park and chatting for an uninterrupted moment, chatting with my mom on the phone for an hour, having a glass of wine with a friend and having a heart to heart on a Tuesday. 

These everyday moments are images on my hightlight reel.  People don’t see it because I don’t snap and post.  It isn’t fancy or flashy but it is mine and I’ll take it.

Retreating into Corners

I read that Huffington Post blog, What We Mean When We Say We Need a Break by Amanda King (see below) and I thought, Yes, I get it.  I’m with her.  Moms need mental breaks.  I was so pumped by this blog, I asked my husband to read it. It triggered a debate/ borderline argument.  From his point of view, he felt slighted.  In our family he is the main provider and he felt his day-to-day stresses were sloughed off with a jaunty disregard and an off-hand wave of thank you. I disagreed with him in a ‘cross my arms across the chest’ kind of way.  After all, the blog was written about how the mom feels about her short breathing space in the middle of her otherwise sealed way of life.  We both have our point of views.  They are both acknowledged in the post. 

And then I remembered about 2 months ago, I had a long few weeks and I was DONE.  Not in a bad way, just in a normal way from a mom with 2 young kids.  You know, in need of a mental break.  I couldn’t even motivate myself to wipe a butt over the weekend.  I left my husband for that.  He kind of did everything from soup to nuts that weekend, bless his soul.  We were at my parent’s house, which helped.  I just sat.  At the end of the 2 days, I found my husband upstairs in a back room with the door closed.  I opened the door at 8:30 pm and looked at him.  “Now you know why I retreat into corners,” I said.  He laughed.  He got it.  2 days and he got it.  “I’m sorry I didn’t help much.  I just needed a break.”  He understood.  More importantly, he sees how hard motherhood is.  Not parenting.  Nope.  Motherhood.  Being the mom.  Maybe he does get it?  Or maybe he just wants recognition as well…

I concede all of us need a short rest while in the middle of our lives. I reflect; take a breath, a break.  I do it often.  It is the only way to survive.  Before children and marriage, I used to shut my bedroom door, light a few candles and watch “My Best Friend’s Wedding” over and over again.  I used to fall asleep watching the same 3-4 movies.  I wrote in a journal, let calls go to voicemail, and found my balance.

Now, I don't have that kind of time.  When my husband walks in the door from work, sometimes I disappear.  Literally.  I’ll hear them saying in the background, “Where did mommy go?  Where’s mommy?”  I’m off in my corner.  I call it, Retreating into Corners.  That is where I’ll be.  That is where mommy is, in her time-out corner.  I’ll hear them.  I’ll kind of roll my eyes and say to myself, “Please don’t find me.”  Or I’ll hear, “awww, how cute, show mommy how cute you look.”  I want to say, “I KNOW!” I’ve seen it all day.  Now I need to NOT see it.”  Don’t find me.  I’m hiding in the closet.  Or, I’ll be in the chair with a book…next to my bed with a computer on my lap…sitting in the basement staring off into space. “Honey, what are you doing?” “ “Just sitting,” ie. leave me alone.

For me, retreating into corners is my way of shutting out the fights over dolls and toys.  Forgetting about how many times I am fulfilling requests and answering questions.  I try and tune out catching spilled milk before it happens and whatever else drama I try and avoid throughout the day.  My husband's way of retreating into corners or getting that so-called break is playing golf, watching football, toying with fantasy football, sitting on the can, and/or ignoring the trash can for a day.

We all need a mental break; men and women alike.  They need to know we understand.  We need to know they understand.  We ALL need to find our corners.  Whatever we do in our corners is well…up to us.

Nothing has changed. This has been the argument since the beginning of time.  Even though we argued about it, I know we both understand each other.  In the end, we just want understanding.  It’s a human need.  It is called empathy.

I wonder what Mrs. Cavewoman would say to Mr. Caveman, maybe how dark the cave is, how her little cave rugrats were testing her cave patience from sunup to sundown, how she couldn’t get the lice out of all the hair and fur lying around… how he was gone too long hunting game and fish, how she had to light the fire to keep out the wild animals at the door…Maybe just maybe he understood even as he labored home with the winter’s store up of food on his shoulders, maybe he winked at Mrs. Caveman and took the kid’s berry picking or kicking the stones around the barren ground, just maybe…

And then Mrs. Cavewoman would pick up a pictured stone to read, put up her hairy feet and watch the sun go down content with the thought that he understands.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-king/stay-at-home-parent_b_2558642.html