It was a perfect fall night last night. The air was crisp and clean. The sky was clear, and it was relatively quiet outside. I love and hate the fall. I love the weather, but I hate the upcoming winter and that taints my enjoyment of this season a little. Last night, however, Lee and I enjoyed fall. One of our favorite things to do is sit out on our front porch with a cup of hot tea and just relax. We always have great conversation and last night was no exeption. Last nights talk, however, resulted in me having a very restless night.
When Lee and I got married, we were, as most married couples are, full of dreams and ambition. The world was ours. We just had to figure out how to take it. Marrying Lee was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for many, many reasons, one of them being that he exudes confidence whereas I’ve always desperately lacked it. He’s brought me out of my shell in a lot of ways, but I didn’t realize what a frustrating person I must be to live with until last night.
I have always had great dreams. There have always been things that I wanted to do and accomplish, but I sorely lack the drive to go out and do them because I so badly fear failure. I am also quite dependent upon what others think of me. If I try and fail, what will people think? Will they secretly laugh behind my back? Will they shake their heads and wonder why I even tried in the first place? I don’t know why I’m so plagued by these thoughts, but they are very paralyzing. Lee, however, could give a flying flip what people think about him. It helps that he is so likeable that anyone who didn’t like him would have to be mentally unstable. Anyhoo, I was explaining to Lee how I wish that I could go see the debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin because I have such an admiration for Sarah Palin. You see, my problem is not a lack of ambition or drive. I have a lot of that, and if I really psych myself up, I can get over the fear thing. But once I became a mom, I began to have a hard time reconciling personal ambition with responsibility. I know that being a mom is my number one priority. So I guess my biggest hold up is a fear that I won’t be able to do everything well. So, I end up doing nothing at all. A bad trade off. Sarah Palin has inspired me that it’s okay to be ambitious and be a mom. Somehow I have a hard time putting those two things together.
Another woman who has inspired me in recent months is Dana from Mamalogues. If you’ve never read her site, you should – it’s great. Here is someone who is just like me. She’s a mom, a writer, a smart, ambitious woman and she’s actually doing something with that. I admire that. I want to do something with my dreams. When I told Lee these things last night, he all but threw his hands up in the air and told me he’s been trying to get me to do something about this for 8 years now. His exact words, so true yet so biting, were, “I’ve never met someone with so much talent and so little confidence to use that talent.” Ouch. You gotta love an honest spouse, yeah? After that he started talking about war and Braveheart as an analogy for networking…Apparently I am like someone on the front lines who gets stabbed and retreats quickly at the discourgement, when I should be running all the way into the middle of the pack so I can see what I’ve got to work with. I admit, I giggled a little during this part of his rant.
After that, we went to bed where I spent the night tossing and turning, thinking about the things I want to accomplish and wondering what I need to do to get started and get past this fear. I’m not sure I’ve come to the conclusion yet, but I am certainly going to try and stop using my kids as an excuse to not be ambitious. That’s not fair to them or to me. I’m not sure I’m ready to share what my dreams are either, because that’s really putting myself out there. But I know I have to do something. It’s not that I’m discontent with motherhood. I’m actually quite content. But I feel like I’m not honoring the Lord by fully using what He’s given me. I’ve felt that way for a long time, but it’s amazing how easy it is to shove those feelings aside and push on. Thank God for an awesome husband who refuses to let me live a life of mediocrity.
To read other ambitious women who are also excellent mothers, go to this site or this site…
Saturday morning was phenomenal, so we packed up the kids and the dog and headed to Castlewood Park, one of my favorite in St. Louis where we ran, played and hiked up to the overlook. It was so fun to be out in nature. Lee, Sloan and I had a blast. Tia whined most of the time and Landon seemed a little perturbed that we were once again denying him of his coveted morning nap. But it was still a good time.
I looked just long enough to snap these pictures, but watching my husband and my babies on this rock, hanging perilously over a large and deadly drop-off pretty much terrifies me. I think I lost a couple of years waiting on them to return.
Tossing rocks over the edge.
Landon got his first shoulder ride.
Later we went to Sloan’s soccer game and had a good laugh at his complete lack of motivation in sports. He’s a great little athlete but is not even remotely competitive so he just runs around and grins and waves. But he has a blast so that’s all that matters.
Bradburns is a fun place. It makes me wish I were homeschooling so I could get all the fun little gadgets and gizmos for learning. Then I hear Tia start screaming and Sloan smack her for doing God-knows-what that made him and angry and I thank the good Lord above we live in a good school district! I did buy a couple of books to help him work on reading though. While I am thrilled, nay ecstatic, that he can read in russian, I’m a little concerned that he doesn’t know English phonics – like, at all. So, we will begin working on that. I really want him to have basic reading skills by the time he goes to kindegarten. He knows all his letters and can write most of them, but he doesn’t really know how they sound. And guess what? Russian is a lot easier than English when it comes to phonics because, in general, every letter has only one sound. Geesh. I think I’m going to let daddy teach him to read in English! For those of you with kids already in kindegarten, or higher grades, what do kids need to know when they enter school? What is expected of them and what will give them a leg up? Sloan is a smart kid and I want him to be challenged, but I don’t want to have too high of expectations. I’m not expecting him to be reading Dostoevsky by the end of this year, maybe just a little Pushkin. No, seriously, three or four letter words would be great. Is that too much to expect? I dunno.
I swear, I have never once bathed any of my children like this – I just wanted to clarify.
I am so excited about these because it gives the kids some focus and it rewards their work. At the end of the week, if they have their chart mostly filled we give them a small allowance. The stickers from the chart are reusable so at the end of the each week, I just pull them off and we start all over again with a clean slate. Sloan gets stickers for making his bed, picking up toys, cleaning the bathroom, doing his homework (with a good attitude), taking his dishes to the sink (after all three meals) and having a nice attitude. I reserve the right to take any stickers away if needed. Tia gets stickers for the same things minus homework and cleaning the bathroom. It’s been a fun way to encourage them to do these simple, basic chores on a daily basis. They love to put their stickers on their charts and love getting money even more!
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