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In Like a Hippo

This week marks the one year anniversary of me leaving my house to go to an office three days a week, and then work from home the other days...becoming a true "working mom". Uggh. This time last year my husband and I were so stressed out. His job was shaky at best as the company he worked for struggled to stay in business. I switched my part time, work from home schedule to a salaried position with benefits, etc. A very similar situation to millions of people in 2010.

Ryan's new job was a true answer to the most specific prayer I've ever prayed and I am forever grateful to God for that. The whole mess was a false alarm and our family bounced right out of it. Unfortunately though, I kept my job. There was something else I held on to last spring...my winter weight gain.

March is usually my month to "step it up". I know I use that phrase a lot for fashion, hockey mom spirit, etc...but it always means "look hotter." In the case of March, I traditionally have to kick it into gear to drop my holiday/football party/hockey tournament/Valentine's candy FAT. I have been dieting in the spring my whole life. The first diet I remember clearly was in eighth grade when my friend Jackie put me on a diet. I believe the whole diet consisted of not getting my daily Sour Cream and Onion Tato Skins (best chip ever invented) fix from the Lincoln School vending machine. There also may have been boiled chicken and Cracklin Oat Bran involved in that diet, but subtracting the Tato Skins was a life changer at that point...and all I needed to step it up. Twenty Marches followed that Tato Skin diet and, minus the three that were spent pregnant, I've spent all of them stepping it up.

So March 2010, 20 years after the Tato Skins life changer of 1990, after twenty years of excercise, diet pills, vomiting, and fad diets...I didn't step it up. I completely let myself go...I stress ate, I drank two glasses of wine every night, I ordered takeout lunch at the office. In my busy new schedule something had to go, and it was my daily trip to the gym. Followed by the Y playground, big healthy lunch of salad, a can of tuna and balsamic, the shower, weigh in and walk to get the kids at school that used to consume my entire day. It used to take all day for me not to be fat! Notice I don't say it took all day for me to be skinny, I have never been skinny- not even in eighth grade. The goal is always- not fat.

I resolved last year that I was going to enjoy summer anyway, even though I couldn't fit into my short shorts (or any shorts). I bought a couple of skirts, and actually had a great summer not obsessing over my weight. But you only get one of those. This year, there's no excuse. I've been back to work a year, and not all employed people are overweight. But instead of just one winter of weight, I have two winters, a summer of not caring and several months of mommy guilt and stress pounds to shed. This is going to take more than a few weeks, but I have to start. Right Now (cue the Van Halen music). Its on, like fat girl donkey kong.

March has come in like a hippo (by the way I recently learned on Animal Planet that hippos are quite deadly, so its a good substitue for lion). I'm not sure what its going out like, maybe a lamb, maybe a cow, maybe a slightly slimmer hippo? We shall see. To be Continued...

My Spirit Scarf Gives me Superpowers

The playoffs are approaching and it's time for hockey moms to step it up. Remember, it's our duty to our children to give 110% toward looking cuter than the other moms on the team.

One accessory we've been rocking big time is the all important spirit scarf... ok, we didn't know it was called that until we heard it at our tournament last weekend. But we love it. Most of us have these scarves courtesy of our crafty and thoughtful friend Danielle. They are three long pieces of fleece sewn together down the middle and then cut every few inches to create a fringy look. Danielle- Hermes has nothing on you baby. Plenty of other teams around Rhode Island have these made in their own colors and we see them all the time. Posers.

I could write a book, not a blog about how I ran around town last weekend with the world's heaviest cake (don't doubt me, the thing was ridiculous), thru like an inch of snow, from a tied Mite game to a super heated one goal squirt game complete with bench penalties, punches and complete mayhem and got an opposing mom to help me with the damn cake. If I were to write that book it would be called "My Spirit Scarf Gives Me Superpowers".

I've decided for the playoffs I am going to break out my Blair Waldorf inspired white coat (from Victoria's Secret catalog, I also have light pink, very good deal). I think its a nice fresh way to wear your spirit scarf. Bring it mamas!!!!!

It's Good to Be FIVE

My littlest baby is five years old- it's not his birthday or anything, he's been five for a while now, but it's on my mind today. When I think of 5 , a few things always play in my head. One is Little Bill...is that show even on anymore? Little Bill was five, and I always remember his dad teaching him, and him repeating "it's good to be five" in that smooth Bill Cosby rhthym.

The other line is from a poem that the kindergarten teacher sends home every year on the first day of school. This lady is forever on a diabolical mission to make moms cry...so she likes to find poems to screw with us. I don't remember the rest of the poem, but there's a line that says "when you're five and your heart has wings, nothing can mean so many things". What does that mean? Who knows. But it made you choke up a bit, right?

The third great "five" line that sticks with me is the morning my oldest turned five. My husband and I were lying in bed and we heard him get up and repeat to himself "I'm five, I'm five, I'm five" and we heard his little feet running to the bathroom, see himself in the mirror and say "I still look four". It was one of those great days that started out with a hysterical belly laugh before my head lifted off the pillow.

So in my decade of accrued mommy wisdom, I've determined that five is a year to savor. I know certain things are important in the world that is kindergarten and birthdays parties are pretty much top on the list. I remember when birthday parties were much of my social life, I'd hop from party to party and chat it up with all the moms. Probably carrying Luke in one of my million slings, Lexi decked out in an $80 boutique outfit...oh how times have changed.

This past weekend was crazy around here, we had hockey out the wazoo topped with a big fat hockey party at my house on Saturday night. I was busy with all the big kid stuff. One of Luke's closest friends' birthday party was Saturday morning at the same time as Luke's instructional hockey. I had determined that we'd be skipping hockey to go to the party. He'd already missed a party because we were at his brother's tournament and I know this birthday party age only lasts a few years. There will be plenty more ice time in my little boy's future.

Imagine my surprise when my five year old contemplated going to hockey instead of the party... I saw that little look in his eye, and thought- NO! is the moment my baby becomes one of them- a hockey player?? Because I know so well that the sport has an addictive quality I will never understand. The complulsion to skate is bigger than fevers, tummyaches and broken bones, please don't let it be bigger than a kindergarten birthday party. Thankfully, his little five year old mind can still be manipulated and off to the party we went.

And then I did the craziest thing of all- I STAYED at the party! I didn't take off to run errands, get ready for the evening's bash, drive my other kids places...I stayed and took it all in. They played, they bounced, they sang they caked- my friend's youngest lost a tooth in the middle of it all. I enjoyed every minute of it, because you know what happens at every single kindergarten birthday party? Someone turns SIX.

Why Hockey Moms are the Hottest

Check out the custom Hockey Moms are the Hottest travel mug I ordered for my super hot hockey mom friend. Stay tuned for my fashion line "Cowbells and Dreams"...hats, gloves, blankets and of course sweatpants with COWBELL across the ass. It's all happening! (just kidding, nothing is happening and grown women shouldn't wear sweatpants in public)

I know what you are thinking- just WHY are hockey moms are the hottest? I'm pretty sure it's all about the attitude...

1. if you let your kids play hockey, you can't be an uptight, paranoid mom that hovers over her kid, even if they get hurt. there is plexiglass between mama and her cub, and we are ok with that.

2. flexibility- hockey families don't sit down to a lot of weeknight dinners, or always always go to bed on time. the only routine is going to hockey, it's just a matter of what time we need to be there.

3. one word- SCREAM- that's hot

4. we throw the best parties

5. be aggressive, B-E AGGRESSIVE...no one pushes around a hockey mom. I don't know any other civilized women outside of reality tv who will get into it with refs, coaches, total strangers.

6. we move fast. ice time is precious and work, dinner, traffic and homework can sometimes delay our best efforts. no time to daudle. last week I dropped one child off to sharpen all the skates, two more at the door while I parked the car and still had my friend's (not even my own) six year old completely suited up and on the ice in five minutes.

7. naturally, my new Cowbells and Dreams fashion line makes anyone look HOT!

Seeing your Shadow

Today my friend posted a photo on facebook of her boy in tears at the end of his last hockey game of the season. The groundhog didn't see his shadow, I like to say, and it's an early spring for his Squirt team. I say this tongue in cheek, not only because we live in New England and can get snow in June, but also because he still has weeks left of House League playoffs followed by spring clinics, summer camps, etc...hockey truly never ends.


Someone commented under the photo that they had "learned more from their defeats than from their victories", which I think is quite true. And this is one of the reasons I'm glad my children play hockey. It seems that fewer and fewer youth sports keep score these days, and most give a participation trophy to everyone who shows up. I'm not sure what this teaches kids about life, but it certainly doesn't prepare them for disapointment. Youth hockey is one of the few places you will find competitive tryouts for kids as young as seven, for better or worse. It's not easy to deal with loss and rejection at a young age, but it doesn't get any easier as you get older, so you may as well give it a try early on. Once you lose a playoff game, or get cut from a team, and then you wake up the next morning and go about your day, you realize you don't need to be afraid of failure. Kids learn to take chances, shoot the puck, tryout for the team- what's the worse that can happen? My dad always taught me that adversity builds character. I hope hockey is helping to build my kids' character. Or at least to counter-effect the X Box games that are rotting at their souls.

My daughter's team will likely see an early spring...their season has been a lot more like the movie Groundhog Day. We wake up, drive thru the snow, get to the rink, and they lose, same routine every time. Sometimes, like today, they only lose by a couple of goals, sometimes we're just praying for a groundhog to pop out of the ice and put us all out of our misery. Learning to lose with grace is part of life, and it's hard. Winning is much easier. So when the buzzer rings and her team has lost, again, it's ok for my daughter to be disapointed, to give the ice a little bang with her stick and then brush it off and shake hands.

I just hope she knows God made her perfectly; that her Dad and I love her to the moon and back; and that life is short but the hockey season is loooong- there will be another game next week. And I hope she takes a lesson from her brother (below), everyone hugs the goalie when they win- go get your goalie after a tough loss.

The Hardest to Learn

I named my blog after the song by the Indigo Girls, which was a favorite in my college dorms. I've known the words to the song by heart for years http://www.metrolyrics.com/least-complicated-lyrics-indigo-girls.html and "the hardest to learn was the least complicated" truly speaks to my experience with motherhood. And the line "the kids are walkin home from school" reminds me of how much I wish my neighborhood was full of kids walking home in lieu of the SUV traffic that rivals Los Angeles at rush hour.

I've always been a pretty laid back mom, but it took me until my third baby before I gave up feeling guilty about it. I stopped stressing over all the scheduled nursing, waking and sleep training nonsense. I was all about keeping simple. I used to wear Luke in a sling everywhere, not because I'm a hippy but because I had two preschoolers to chase around. I breastfed because it was easy, but when I had to give a bottle it was formula, pumping was too....say it with me...complicated!

Now that my babies are not so much babies, but kids ages 10, 8 and 5...I try my best not to complicate things. When I thought about this blog last year I was still a stay at home mom. I was itching to cut out all the crazy from motherhood; from the baby music classes to driving kids to school early so that they can join the walking club- hello anyone else see the irony? I felt like it was more complicated than ever to raise kids, and I felt like we moms were making it that way. I was longing to be more of an old fashioned 50's style mom, who didn't have a car or cable or a gym membership and who's kids did chores and entertained themselves around the neighborhood.

Circumstances have changed and I now work outside the home. I've gotten a chance to make friends with a couple of moms outside of my usual circles. They don't have time to drive their kids to school, so their kids take the bus. If the kid forgets something at home, that sucks for them. If my kids forgets something at school and I am stuck at the office, I usually cry because I feel so guilty. The girls at the office don't fret about gifts for teachers or school events, in fact when I try to discuss such topics at work I have often gotten the reply "who do you hang out with?" and I just laugh...I hang out with people exactly like me!

I never guessed I could learn so much about motherhood from younger, working, single moms who've never even been to a PTA meeting. But I have...by just listening to my friend Amanda on the phone with her sons everyday after they get themselves home from school...I've learned about discipline, chores, independence and fierce mama bear love. I still don't know where my ideal throw back mom is hiding in 2011 but I know her kids are walkin home from school, or at least taking the bus.