Are you Happy, Mommy?

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My little girl, who is a month shy of three years old, is sugary-sweet and firecracker combined into a 30-lb package.  My hopes and dreams for her span far and wide.  She’s taught me things that no one else could.  She thinks I hung the moon.  She’s a “Mommy’s girl” through and through.

Lately, she’s been asking me this question a lot:

“Are you happy, Mommy?”

Usually it gets asked after her or her brother have been disciplined.  Sometimes she asks me in the darkness of the night, when her little voice has called me to take her to the bathroom.  But once in a while it’s an out-of-the-blue, regular conversation question.

Most of the time, my answer is yes.  And it’s a genuine yes; I’m blessed to live a happy life.  But sometimes the answer is no.  No, I’m not happy that you just had a temper tantrum about which pants to wear.  Or threw your fork across the room.  Or hit your brother.  In those instances, I explain that I’m not happy about what’s just happened.  But what about the times when I’m just having a tough day and she can read it on my face?

From time to time, I struggle with my answer.  Her bright eyes peer at me, her head tilts, her concerned brow questions.  Am I happy?

  • Do I shield her two-year-old heart from negative emotion and keep her safe and secure in a world of only happiness and good outcomes?
  • Or do I show her the real-life stuff and teach her that emotions, both good and bad, can ebb and flow?

I choose the latter.

I think it’s important that children see their parents be sad and disappointed and frustrated.  Upset.  Worried.  Troubled.  And yes, even angry.  But I think it’s even more important that children see their parents handle these emotions constructively.

My kids see me cry.

My kids see me get excited.

My kids see me yell.

My kids see me laugh.

Emotion is a part of life, so it is the process of learning to deal with that emotion that will serve them well.

“Are you happy, Mommy?”

Yes, my sweet girl, more than you’ll ever know.

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A Jar Full of Rocks. Oh, and Garth Brooks.

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Remember the story of the philosophy professor who filled a jar with rocks and asked his students if it was full?  Then he added pebbles, and the students again agreed it was full.  Then he added sand, and the sand filled the empty spaces, and the jar truly became full (you can read the extended story here if you don’t know what I’m talking about).  The professor was using the jar and its contents as a symbol of life and priorities- the rocks signify the ‘big stuff’ like health and family, the pebbles signify the ‘medium stuff’ like work and school, and the sand signifies the ‘small stuff’ like material possessions.  If you put the sand into the jar first you will have no room for anything else.

Let’s use that to segue into how I view my children: they’re like little beautiful jars just waiting to be filled up. And it’s my job to fill them up.

I didn’t always feel this way. In fact, probably barely a decade ago, I wondered if I’d ever have children, if I would ever want to have children.  I thought the maternal instinct had bypassed me, and I was all-consumed in myself and building my future.  Then I became a mother and the sand dumped out of the jar to make room for the rocks.  

So I’ve very carefully set up my life geared towards this goal.  My kids are little scrapbooks that I’m filling up with memories.  They’re the empty canvas and I’m the artist painting the brushstrokes of the masterpieces they will become.  I’m get-out-there-and-DO-it instead of get-out-there-and-BUY-it, presence more than presents, quality above quantity.

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Why the mush and gush today?  Well, it’s all Garth Brooks’ fault.

You see, I’ve got tickets to his March 7th show, and the country girl in me has been out in full force.  Even if you’re not a country music fan or a Garth Brooks fan (gasp!), have a listen to this song (click here to hear ‘Mom’) and I think you’ll feel the emotion too.

“Cause there’s someone down there waiting whose only goal in life is making sure you’re always gonna be alright”.

True.

 

I Ran a Race. I Won.

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Yesterday I posted a status on my ‘Dr. Ashley Worobec Facebook Page‘ that showed a couple of pictures from my 10k race the day before.

My words were:

“These pictures sum up my weekend, and why I LOVE to run- this is happiness in its truest form. I raced in the 10k Hannukah Hustle in Hamilton on Sunday morning and I won! It wasn’t a big race, and my 43 minutes wasn’t record-breaking, but as 1st female, I even got a bike escort into the finishing chute and got to break through the finish line tape with my daughter in my arms. This first picture shows me stopping to grab her from the wagon (my 5-yr-old son wanted to stay put!) and the second picture shows the post-race bliss (and exhaustion!). Find something you love and throw yourself into it. The benefits will reach far and wide.”

And then I reconsidered, regretted, and thought-twice for a bit.  Should I have put this accomplishment out there, so bravado and look-at-me and I’m-so-great?  That’s not typically my style, not what I’m about, not who I am.  And yet, I really wanted to share this moment with my patients.  That’s the exact purpose for my Dr. Ashley page; a place where my patients can get to know me and what makes me unique in my time outside of the clinic.  It’s where I can share my opinions on topics that I think would be of interest to them- be it fitness, parenting, or healthcare.  I deliberately keep this Page separate from my personal Facebook profile, and that’s the part I’ve been reconsidering; why was I okay with posting this under my professional persona and not my personal?  Answer: because somehow, it seems less show-offy, less girls-shouldn’t-brag, less boastful, and more polite.  Somehow, I’m a degree removed.

All day, I’ve had people congratulating me on the race.  The feedback has been wonderfully huge, and Facebook tells me that almost 2500 people have viewed those pictures.  And yet, I keep downplaying my run, skirting around the compliments, trying to exercise humility after a showy post.  I’ve “aw, shucks”-ed a lot.  “It was just a small race,” I tell people, “I only won because no one fast showed up,” or “I was dying out there.”

Wanna know the truth?

I felt great.  I felt effortless.  I felt invincible.

And it was a small race and none of the super-fasts came to play, but it was still my first win in years, my first bike escort, my first finish-line tape, and the first time my kids saw their mama WIN.  An outright, unequivocal, black-and-white win that they can understand.  They’ve seen me head out into the pre-dawn cold Sunday after Sunday while they stayed in their cozy pj’s.  They’ve heard me huffing and puffing as I pushed all 80lbs of them in the double stroller on my last training run.  They’ve watched me cross off numbers on my training plan and cross off days on the calendar.  And then they saw me win.

I hope they learned that fitness is fun.  I pray they learned to seek out a passion.  I know they learned that if you work hard you get rewarded.

I recently read ‘Carry On, Warrior‘, in which the author, also a blogger, talks about how she has no shame.  She writes, “I’m shameless.  I’m almost ashamed at how little shame I have.”  I can see where she’s going with this.  As my own blog grows, I can feel my filter loosening.  My take-it-or-leave-it growing.  My this-is-me flourishing.

This is me.  I ran a race.  I won.  And I’m damn proud that my kids saw it happen.

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