I’m a little late writing a post this week, but it is for a good reason.  I had the pleasure of celebrating my eldest’s 8th birthday and throwing her a wild animal party with her friends this week.  Note to Self: Hosting a birthday party with 20 kids will physically and emotionally drain you as a six-month pregnant woman.  Whew.  Survival was only made possible due to my better half being there to help every step of the way.  Hooray for helpful husbands!

Each time one of my children turns a year older, I reflect on life as it was around their birth.  Birthdays have a tendency of making us reflective that way.  Particularly when it comes to children, we think about growth and development.  I saw this quote by author and artist, Doe Zantamata, that seemed fitting to share this week, in which our family celebrated my beautiful daughter’s birthday.  Zantamata wrote on her blog The HIYLife, “If your parents ever measured you as a child, they had you stand against a wall, and made a little pencil mark on the wall to show your growth.  They did not measure you against your brother, or the neighbor’s kids, or kids on TV.  When you measure your growth, make sure to only measure your today self by your past self.”  I needed this reminder as much for myself as for the healthy raising of my children.

Just this week, as I was attempting to make my daughter’s party cupcake tops look like zebra stripes using chocolate sprinkles on top of white frosting, I stood there comparing myself to others.  To be precise, I said out loud to my husband, “If my Mom could see how poorly I was doing this, she would be rolling over in her grave.”  My husband, in his kindness said, “If your Mom was here she would be playing with the kids or dipping these strawberries in chocolate and would not be fussing over your cupcakes.”  I smiled at the idea of my Mom actually being there and how she would be too busy helping to critique.  Don’t get me wrong, my Mom had her thoughts on such matters, but she was never one to compare.  Of course, my self-bashing still continued as each cupcake seemed to get worst and worst.  I began mumbling negative thoughts under my breath and starting to plot my submission to the Pinterest Fails, as surely another woman out there had done this better than me.  They really looked nothing like zebra stripes.  The chocolate sprinkles were just too big to pull off the idea I had in mind.  My husband suggested that I just skip the striped plan and make them black and white.  Done.  They actually looked much better after his suggestion.  But the thought occurred to me, would I have been so hard on myself had I not thought of what my Mom was capable of in the kitchen or the myriad of amazing results I’ve seen on Pinterest?  The cupcakes somehow became more acceptable when I just looked at them as my personal offering to the party guests versus the end product of all marvelous things created by others in the kitchen.  It was amazing how much better I felt once I let go of my urge to compare myself to others.

Unfortunately, that’s what the natural part of me does.  It’s the same with this blog.  As I’ve mentioned before, I struggled to start such a blog based on the mere fact that others out there write better than me.  My logic told me, “what’s the point in writing at all, if others can do it so exceptionally well?”.  Even worse, I’m certain I do it with my kids too.  I make a conscience effort not to do it, but if I can get caught up in a cupcake decorating frenzy, I have got to be doing this to my kids without even knowing.  My two girls, with only two years between them, seem to constantly be in a struggle with what each of them has and does not have.  I fear I may be adding to it.  While my husband and I are constantly telling them that it’s most important to be themselves, as Everyone Else is Already Taken, I may very well be comparing them merely in just how I discipline them.  I cringe at how many times I have said to my eldest, “How is it that your sister who is two years younger can listen and follow directions, but you can’t?”  Ugh.  It’s embarrassing to even type such things, but I’m an impatient and an imperfect woman and these things happen in our home.  I don’t condone them, but still they happen.  I would never let my girls speak to themselves the way I sometimes speak to myself.  Nor would I let them compare themselves to any other kid.  Yet I seem to do comparisons naturally.  Any chance I can place some blame on being taught how to do Venn Diagrams as a kid?

All joking aside, comparing yourself with another is an ugly habit and it begets ugly feelings.  I find that most all of my moments of discouragement and disappointment are rooted with my actions of comparisons.  Not comparing my today self with my past self, but comparing myself with others.  Come to think of it, the last time I had a good cry-fest (these happen more frequently while I’m pregnant) was last week when I was sitting comparing my life without having my Mom around with others who still get to have their Moms around.  I even wrote a post on Over The Big Moon entitled Because of Him about working through the process and letting go of my “have not” attitude.  Oh vey, Readers.  I think we may have a bigger beast on our hands than I realized.  This issue really is just as Theodore Roosevelt stated, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

I don’t want to rob myself nor my children of such joy.  I’m praying that my heightened awareness of this matter within myself and in our home will help me to eradicate it.  As always, I invite you to share your insights and suggestions in the comments section.  Obviously, I have much to learn.  I see and understand all the drawbacks that come from comparing ourselves to others.  That part I know.  But how do you stop from comparing yourself to others and comparing your children with other children when it seems to come naturally?  Is it as simple as Bob Newhart says in one of the most hilarious bits I’ve seen regarding therapy?  Do I just STOP IT?!

I’ve had a rough couple of days.  I don’t do well when stuck indoors for long periods of time, which has been the case lately.  Cabin fever sinks in quickly with me.  I also don’t do well with a toddler screaming every time that I don’t hold him and every time he does not get what he wants.  Add on that my middle one is sick, my daughters are having nightmares due to the season of beheaded zombies hanging from porches, and my husband has been working literally day and night for the past six days.  Sleep has eluded me.

I can’t help but hear Claire Foster’s line in Date Nightwhen she is confessing to her husband that she fantasizes more about being alone than leaving him for another man, “There are times when, on my worst day, I’ve thought about just leaving our house and going someplace, like checking into a hotel. Being in a room all by myself, in a quiet, air-conditioned room, sitting down, eating my lunch, with no one touching me—drinking a diet Sprite, by myself.”  Insert Dr. Pepper for Diet Sprite and she’s described what I long to do on days like yesterday.

Checking in to a hotel would have been much better than the breakdown I had yesterday morning when my husband was finally off from his 16-hour shift at work.  The worst part is that I selfishly was upset over my circumstances and here my husband had just worked a 16-hour shift of running around physically caring for people.  I was acting like a brat, honestly.  Still my husband kindly took my ever-screaming son and let me go and cry.  That’s love right there.  Just a few minutes to cry in peace with no one touching me.

Crying helped, as it sometimes does.  I still felt pretty pathetic though for being such a ninny about my plight instead of tending to my husband’s well-being.  Sometimes we have really bad days at work and they last longer than we’d like.  That happened to be the case for both of us this time.  He handled it gracefully, I handled it poorly.

Later, I was listening to a song called Second Chances by Gregory Alan Isakov off of his album The Weathermanand this one line hit home, “if it weren’t for second chances, we’d all be alone.”  How many second chances has my husband given me and I him, I wonder?  These last few days have been a series of second chances.

I’ve had a second chance at putting my daughter’s minds to rest before they fall asleep, a second chance to figure out how to properly discipline my son for his uncharacteristically difficult behavior, a second chance to look at my husband’s needs and sacrifices on our family’s behalf, and a second chance to not beat myself up over every time I guiltily wanted to walk out the door for even a couple minutes of peace from the chaos.

I hear all the time that I should cherish this time, as it will go quickly.  I already know it goes quickly.  I already miss the days that my eldest was a tiny baby.  I do my best to treasure every moment with my children, as I have known people that have lost their kids unexpectedly.  The very thought of losing my children makes me physically ill.  But is it really so bad to want the moments of yanking and pulling, incessant screaming, and blatant disobedience to move by a little faster?  I hate that I feel guilty for not enjoying these moments like I’m “supposed” to.

Life is such a conundrum, isn’t it?  I remember when my Mom first passed away, I wanted time to speed up so that I could be old and die and be with her again, while I simultaneously wanted life to slow down so I could take in every new baby smell and giggle from my girls.  I suppose the same goes for the action of cherishing this time with my kids.  I want the tantrums to speed by and the precious moments shown below to stand still in time.

Thankfully, my children, just as my husband, give me second chances.  They forgive me for all the wrong choices that I make, my unnecessarily raised voice, and my blindness to times that they just want my full attention and nothing more.  As Amy Krouse Rosenthal writes in her children’s book One Of Those Days, “Luckily, every single one of those days eventually turns into night.  And every single night turns into a brand-new day.”

So, here’s to a new day of second chances!  Without them, we’d all be alone.