A Letter To My Boys

Dear Ben and Blake,

I was watching you play tonight at YaYa and PaPa's house when I was there to pick you up after work and I couldn't help  it...all I could do was stare at you. 

You both bounced from one thing to the next with such purpose and at the same time with no care in the world. 

You made each other laugh, you watched TV, you snuggled on the couch with YaYa.

You ran in circles, you played dice at the table and you mimicked each other. 

You gave me hugs, you asked how my day was (Blake, I can't understand all of your words yet...but I'm certain you were saying something that effect) and you softened the blow of what was honestly, one of the most mentally and emotionally challenging weeks I have had in a long long time. 

All I wanted to do was bottle every bit of happiness you exude right up. 

All I wanted to do was figure out how to keep you small, to keep you laughing, to keep you as free as you were...and as you usually are. 

But, despite my best efforts, I can't do any of that. 

I cannot stop you from growing up. I cannot promise you won't have a week from hell, that your feelings won't get hurt, that your heart won't get broken, that you won't bat last in the lineup from time to time, that you won't feel defeated and that you won't get knocked down a few pegs every now and then. 

I have spent most of this week feeling completely defeated...but that is only because most of my week was spent at work and not with you. As we drove home from YaYa and Papa's tonight I couldn't help but feel better (and not just because it is Friday)...

No, Friday didn't make me feel better...

You boys, and your love for the world made me feel better. And while I can't do for your life what you do for mine, I can give you some words of wisdom that will hopefully help you be able to channel that inner happy that you so easily have right now. Here, my little dudes, are some things I want you to know, some things I want you to do, and some feelings I want you to never forget...

It's the only way I know how to help you remain in touch with the truly happy little beings we all get to start out as. 

Stand up for yourself.

You are going to have the week that I have referenced here. You are going to come across people who only know how to knock you down. They may do so with lies or they may do it with ignorance...or it may be a little bit of both. 

Be better than them. 

Do not let them defeat you for long. Do not let them make you question your worth, discount your efforts or flat out give up. 

Take credit when you deserve it, give credit when someone else deserves it and (very importantly) give credit to yourself when you deserve it. 

It's ok to think you are awesome.

Be accountable. 

It's important that people can trust you. 

It takes lots of time to earn it and seconds to lose it...and it is tough to gain that trust back. 

You are going to make mistakes. 

Some will be small and some will be jolting. 

Own them.

Own them inwardly and outwardly. 

Become better for them.

People will believe your achievements when they know you've owned your failures. 

Let it go.

Some days you will be able to do this better than others. And while I would like to say that I never went to bed angry, that has not been the case. Just don't hang on too long to things that are bothering you. If you aren't going to change them or if it is something you can't fix...say a prayer, take a breath and let it go. 

Laugh at yourself.

You are funny boys and you have funny parent. I mean parents. Laugh at yourself, alone or with others. Find the funny. 

Do not...and I mean do not...make others feel small. 

If you are in a position of power, walk even more carefully than when you were at the bottom. Don't be the bully...whether you are 5 or 55. Do not make others feel less important than you. Do not demean others to make yourself feel better...you are better than that now and I expect you to remain that way. 

There is a difference between having fun and being an ass. 

Know it. 

Do something fulfilling.

I'm not saying you have to love every minute of what you do. I'm saying if you find something, anything, whether it be a career or something you do on your own time, do something that makes you feel full.

Have kids.

Have kids when it is an appropriate time in your life to have kids. As your mother I suggest that not happen for somewhere in the 25ish year from now range...for what that is worth. 

But truly...have kids.

That will actually make you feel full. Full of love, full of exhaustion, full of hope, full of pride.

I can't explain this one. 

Nobody can. 

You have to be here. 

You'll get it then. 

Apologize...and mean it.

Say you are sorry when it is necessary.

And please, please, please...do not always follow the "I'm sorry" with a "but."

Sometimes you just need to be sorry. 

Say thank you...and mean it.

Be grateful. Tell people that you are. 

Say thank you for things, say thank you for words and say thank you for people. 

You need people. 

Thank the good ones...they keep you going, and they need to know. 

Say I love you...and mean that too.

You will say "I love you" more times than you will even realize. 

And while it is an amazing thing to be surrounded by people to say that to, it is even more amazing to slow down and think about how awesome it truly is.

Be brave.

Life is scary. Dreams are scary. Chances are scary. The dark is scary. 

Whatever the obstacle...be brave. 

I don't believe the whole "nothing good comes easy" thing, but I do believe that some really awesome things are also just outside of your comfort zone. 

Go there. 

Understand the danger in comparisons. 

You are not the person next to you, and what they have is not always better. Please do not compare your average day to other peoples' exceptional ones. They have average days too. You will never enjoy what you have if you are forever comparing yourself to someone who has more.

It's ok to want more...but want it for you, not because you want to be them.

Pay your bills. 

Pay them on time and pay them always. 

Splurge after your bills are paid. 

Ask me about a little thing I like to call "bulimic shopping."

You should feel guilty if you buy something before your bills are paid and your family is taken care of. There is no shame in returning it.

Did you pay your bills?

Return the golf clubs now, if not.

Go on vacation. 

Go with your family. Go with your friends. Go by yourself. Just go. 

Take a minute to yourself...and spend it selfishly.

You want to ignore responsibility for a night and just watch the game? Do that. Be level headed enough to do what needs to be done but also know when you just need a break.

Ask for help.

You cannot do it alone, and the more you try, the more bitter you become. 

Ask for help. You need it and you, your co-workers and your family will be better because of it. 

Be competitive. 

While I still stand by the whole danger in comparison point, I also think competition is healthy. 

However, being raised in the household you are being raised in...I don't foresee a lack of competitive drive being an issue. 

Remember, I make better breakfast, I make you feel better when you are sick and I am better at Mario Kart. 

Do not let a job jade you. 

Work sucks. 

Do not let it ruin your spirit or jade your soul.

Work is work...not life.

It will drag you down, and it is your responsibility to not let that last too long.

And remember those people I told you to thank? 

Lean on them to remind you that you need to get up off of the ground, that you are better than this and that life outside of your job is what you are even doing this for in the first place. 

(Thank them).

Do not use threats.

I hope that goes without saying. 

But in case it doesn't...threats won't get you anywhere worth going.

There are ways to motivate and to get what you want out of the people in your life. 

Threats are not that way.

Understand the power of your words.

Your English loving mother wants you to always know how much power you have if you have the ability to use your words wisely. 

And your actions. 

Actions can speak louder than words, and they usually do.

It's cliche. 

And true.

Be sympathetic. Be empathetic. Know the difference. 

Feel sorry for someone. Feel bad for someone. Feel angry for someone.

Feel with someone.

Sometimes you just need to listen and sometimes you need to relate. 

It is important to your relationships and friendships that you learn when each of these is appropriate. 

Remember where you came from. 

Wherever you are, you worked to get there. 

Someone else is journeying down that path behind you. 

Never forget that you were once there too.

See the good and be ok that it's not all always good.

Whether it's a nice day outside or you just got a huge bonus. There is something good in every day. 

There are awful awful days, and there is something good somewhere in them. You don't have to find the good for a day or two, but don't spend too long turning a blind eye to it. 

You actually have to let the good back in, or you are in trouble.

Understand the worth of folding laundry, washing dishes and knowing where the shoe closet is. 

Ask your dad. Ask your mom. Ask your wife. 

So many problems can be avoided by attention to these matters.

Know how important it is to offer help to others. 

Don't push. 

But don't assume that everyone knows how to ask for help. 

Offer it up. 

People will be grateful. 

Give a compliment...and take a compliment. 

I'm bad at them both.

It's not an attractive quality. 

Buy the guy behind you coffee. 

Pay it forward every now and then. That can be your fulfilling moment for the day. 

Know how much I love you.
I'm not sure you will possibly know until you have a little one of your own, but someday you will understand the true depth of my love for you. In the words of you, my sweet Benjamin "I love you this whole big and this whole little."
And yes, it sounds a bit silly, but I can see it in your eyes and feel it in my soul when you say it...and you really think loving me "this whole little" is the greatest love there is. 
You are right. 

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My Semi-Shallow Thankful List

It is almost Thanksgiving. 

Which means the return of the Piekarz Family Thankful Turkey...or, as Ben would translate, the thank you chicken we pray to. 

We have all ended (most) days this month by writing down what we are thankful for on a paper feather and are working our way towards a whole turkey full of thankfulness by the time the holiday finally arrives and I inevitably eat so much that I end up complaining about how fat I feel for many many days to follow. 

I really enjoy hearing what everyone has to say, and it honestly does us all a bit of good to take a second to just acknowledge the simple things that we have that make us happy. 

There has been no shortage of cuteness as Ben tells us what he is thankful for...

He is thankful for everyone in the whole world on a daily basis, for garbage day, garbage trucks, for garbage bags...

He is also incredibly thankful for his family, and for the time that YaYa and PaPa play with him, for dinner and for bedtime songs. 

We all have had some good ones.

Imperfect Parent

I am not the parent I thought I would be back before I had kids.

Let's face it...I am not that parent tonight that I thought I would be this morning at 5:30 when nobody was awake yet. 

Today my plan was simple...wake up, don't lose my cool, go to bed. That plan was completely shot by 6:15 a.m. 

I spent half of my day today feeling like a failure and the other half of my day feeling like a failure. 

I'm sitting here in a quiet house feeling awful because I experienced the happiest moment of my day today when everyone left for dinner, meaning I didn't have to cook or hear anyone complain for a solid hour and a half, and then immediately experienced the saddest part of my day when I sat down to type and my beaming children were staring at me on my computer. So there I sat feeling like a disaster of a parent because I used to have happy kids and now they are kids who spent the whole day throwing tantrums living seemingly unhappy lives as long as I was around. 

1624 Lakeside Drive

It's a funny thing...moving, that is.

It's this whirlwind of a process that is months in the making and then in a matter of a day or two you have relocated everything you own into a million piles and boxes in a new place that you are now supposed to call home. It's exciting and scary and exhausting. It's something that I never want to do while I have children with more toys than Toys R Us living with me ever ever again. 

It's been a long week. 

Don't get me wrong...our new house could not be more perfect for us. And without the amazing help of my family, there is no way I would be able to be taking the time to write for months, let alone the week we actually moved. 

But it has still been a long and tiring week...and as of yesterday, when I spent a couple of hours cleaning the old apartment, it has become very emotional. 

There is a saying that was painted on a picture frame that I had hanging in my kitchen with a picture of the four of us being goofy that read "It's not the house that I love, but the life that is lived there."

One. More. Week.

We are moving one week from today. Or, as Ben would say, we are moving in 7 sleeps. 

I have spent the better part of the last month packing, painting, having a hard time breathing due to the completely overwhelming amount of clutter, arguing with whoever is here about this house being a mess, browsing Pinterest way too late at night, feeling completely disheveled and counting down the sleeps with Ben until we finally have a little more room to live.

It has been a long month. I don't really handle clutter very well, so it has been interesting around here. 

I actually lost Blake this morning. 

And we were home. 

Ben and I were sprinting through the place for what felt like a full minute, but was most likely about 10 seconds until I found Blake standing by the toilet holding the remote over his head. 

That kid scares me. Not because he is bad...but because he, unlike me, is just not scared. 

I think Ben was more excited that we found the remote than the fact that we found Blake, and I wanted to yell at someone for leaving the bathroom door open while the happy wanderer was awake, but with this apartment looking like it does right now, it's really hard to specifically call out anyone so I didn't even bother. 

What Happens When Mommy Leaves For Work...

Ah, summer. 

The days of bike rides and trips to the park, of water gun fights and playing the iPad outside instead of on the couch. The days of the house smelling like an oddly enjoyable combination of outside, sunscreen and smelly shoes, of a steady pile of beach towels and grass stained clothes on top the washer....

And this.

This, my friends, is a picture of my soaking wet, fully clothed four year old, sent to me at work with a text from my husband reading "No, the answer to this picture is not that we jumped in the pool or that he is that sweaty. Any guesses?"

Now, had I not missed the string of group messages between Joe and my mom outlining what had transpired while I was in a meeting and just opened up my messages to see this, I might have participated in this little guessing game. 

But the fact that I had missed 10+ messages and saw nothing but this picture and the last text from my mom, which asked where Blake was when all of this was going on, threw me into full on mommy panic mode. 

This week sucks. This blog does not.

This week sucks. 

And I feel bad for myself. And I have been spending my fair share of time doing so.

And then, when I'm in the midst of feeling bad for myself, I hear this seriously annoying voice in my head saying "There are people with far less than you who are having a better day than you are..."

Ugh.

And so, I ignore that voice and move on to my next internal temper tantrum. And right when I am in the middle of basking in all of my self pity glory, I hear that damn voice saying things like "You may be having a bad day at work, but at least you have a job to go to." Or, "It is better to have a messy house than a house with no train tracks to trip over." Or, better yet, "It is better to have a messy house than no house at all."

Ugh.

Again.

I mean, I know all of these things. And even when I'm having a week like this one, I truly do appreciate all that I have. But sometimes you just have to feel bad for yourself. 

Yogurt Drool & Crazy Big Huge Slides

So I'm sitting at dinner tonight and I've got one little guy being ridiculously well behaved (I'll pretend that this wasn't because he was trying to make up for the 15 year old attitude crammed in a 4 year old body that he was tossing around today) and I've got another little guy with the top of his hand pressed against his yogurt filled mouth humming and cracking up at the fact that as he hummed, a yogurty saliva mixture was half spraying across the table and half hanging off of his chin. There he sat, resembling a dog with severe drooling problems, while my poor 4 year old is desperately trying not to laugh because he is probably worried that I will make bedtime even earlier than the already early time I promised tonight...and I am just sitting there with a frozen dinner wondering what in the world has happened here. 

I find myself having a lot of those "what in the world is happening" or "how the hell did this awesome day we were having 35 seconds ago turn into this"  or "whose kids are standing up backwards in the shopping cart at Target...oh crap, those are mine" moments lately.

There was that one time, not too long ago, when Ben threw a little bit too much of that attitude towards his dad and was informed that the trip to the park with the "cwazy big huge slides and swings for Blakey" was going to have to wait for another day. 

"Don't bite your brother's face" ... And other things I never thought I would say

It was FINALLY nice enough to be outside for an extended period of time earlier this week, so we took a little walk to Starbucks for coffee and treats. We were happily standing in line when Ben leaned down close to Blake, just trying to be a goof and make him laugh. Within a matter of seconds, Blake got all kinds of excited, leaned forward, grabbed Ben's face, pulled him in to attack him with kisses...and chomped down like he could without consequence back in the day when that smile had teeth that weren't fully cut through. (Which to clarify, was pretty much last week).

And there we were. A devastated 4 year old whose feelings and face were equally damaged...

And a 10 month old smiling from ear to ear because he just attacked his brother with "kisses." 

It really was a sad situation. Thankfully, kids are ridiculously resilient so the moment passed pretty quickly. 

The teeth marks did not.