mom blog

That Last Day

by SoCalledMom · Jul 8, 2019

There is no milestone quite like that last day of school. It’s like crossing a threshold to a new, crisp chapter of life, and is often met with high expectations and big plans.

In a big family like ours, these lofty plans range from “figuring out what I want to do after high school” to “building a monkey bar system in my bedroom so I can avoid the lava on the way to your bedroom…in the middle of the night.” And I must say I’m all about indulging both ideas and everything in between….except the middle of the night part.

Another popular theme is getting into shape. I think especially as the kids get into their older teen years, they’re seeing the value of taking care of themselves–or at least, seeing how the results of eating however they want doesn’t really work out like it once did.

All of this is lovely to hear. What they’re striving for takes planning, goal setting and some specific mom-helicoptering to steer them towards achievement–none of which I’ll be around a whole lot for since I’m out of the house most of the day, for most of the week, working. And maybe that’s a good thing? 😉

Here’s to a self-driven summer!

xo,

So Called Mom

So Called Minimalism | Marie Kondo Sparks Joy with the Konmari Method

by SoCalledMom · Jan 16, 2019

minimalism, intentionalism, intentional living, clearing clutter, konmari, marie kondo, spark joy, new years resolutions, swedish death cleaning, blended family, mindfulness, mom vlogger, mom blog, letting go, freedom, tidying up, tidy, goodbye things, lets get minimal, too much stuff, fumio sasaki, japanese minimalism, make space, get organized, organization, california closets, big family, muji, real simple magazine, with kids, Konmari Method, — Me after the first purge.

When you’re in a big blended family, clutter feels inevitable and living minimally feels unattainable. I mean, for starters, I collect kids, and they collect all the things: rocks, transformers, slime, unicorns, hair accessories, makeup, books, markers, movies, knickknacks, apps, cookie crumbs, dust, grime, yuck. It’s exponential—like a black hole of swirling stuff that, when piled altogether, looks more like garbage and not like things at all. It’s like living inside of one huge junk drawer.

To be honest, I think I am affected the most by it because I’m the one who cleans the most. So I noticed the buildup the most. While cleaning, I would move things from point A to point B and then back again until I came to terms with the fact that there really wasn’t a spot for whatever it is. But I still wouldn’t get rid of it because I never understood the problem, until now.

Another good reason to purge is we could never find anything. There wasn’t a designated spot for things–now there is. Also the kids’ rooms were always a mess because there was too much. Their disorganization and sloppy living situation wasn’t their fault–they were, in reality, just following my lead :-/. Dealing with the stuff takes alot of time and I want to deal with it less and less–but once and for all.

I mean….I probably did my own nails three times a year….

So to ease the chaos and become more environmentally responsible (end goal in sight), I’m trying something new in the hopes that it makes me, and therefore my family, more aware of how we are a part of this planet.

It starts with education. I’ve read everything I could about living minimally, decluttering and living mindfully—all at once . The reason Marie Kondo’s book is such a hit is because in between adorable Japanese musings of decluttering, we actually are getting a step-by step lesson in how to get rid of stuff that doesn’t spark joy. Indeed, when you start with stuff that has less emotion tied to it (i.e. clothes) it’s easier to rid yourself of things that are emotional to let go of (i.e. that stupid necklace from an ex-boyfriend I’ve had in my jewelry box…seriously…why was it in there and what gave it the right to take up that kind of important space for SO LONG? Yes I cried when I put it in the go-away pile).

The art of tidying up, of decluttering, of minimizing and all the other lingo is really about the art of letting go. When you let go of things that don’t spark joy, you become profoundly aware of what does spark joy. Suddenly you’re surrounded by that stuff, and that stuff only and voila! Life is better.

This is easier to do on your own, than in a family of nine, where the kids have had to face their own things and not necessarily on their own terms. A great point was brought up by one of my teens: paying attention to the difference between joy and guilt when parting with things. For example: This object under your bed that you forgot about was a gift and you don’t exactly love it, but feel ungrateful getting rid of it. Fumio Sasaki’s Goodbye, Things addresses this issue several times to a T. If you’re reading Marie Kondo’s books (The Life-Chanaging Magic of Tidying Up & her sequel Spark Joy) , please read Sasaki’s book along side it—it’s great supportive material.

And here’s something new: getting rid of stuff has all of us reconciling: diet & exercise, people & relationships, jobs and tasks–it has cascaded into the realization that we have choices to make and when we’re more present & conscious and far less distracted, we’re at the helm of how our lives go.

I have also learned this is a practice and not an end game, via Regina Wong’s Make Space. There will be mistakes and we will need to edit as time goes on, but this big purge is astounding enough to make us all acutely aware of consumption. Our discard pile is still growing and what’s amazing is that no-one is visiting it, changing their mind about putting something there. At the same time we’re learning about needs versus wants, and when we think we need, we’re prompted to ask ourselves…yeah but, do we really really need it?

SOLD! 🙁
Letting go of Leopold’s toddler toys meant
saying goodbye to an era that clearly defined me.

Decluttering things that are closer to the heart is so crazy emotional. There is no other way around it, than to just let it be. I have allowed myself to sit with the emotions of letting go of something that might seem materialistic and trivial —but difficult for me. How is it that a material object can become so gummed up with sentimentality that it feels like I’m casting a puppy into a volcano? I have had this awful experience recently while getting rid of Leopold’s wooden firehouse. I made myself post it on Facebook Marketplace and when we let it go, I was overcome with such grief, that it took me the rest of the day to recover. I felt heartless, sick to my stomach and wondered if what I really did was give away something that sparked joy. I was worried that I ignored my gut feeling and mad a mistake.

This is my happy place…and also my sad place.
It helps to think about the day going down the drain when the days are difficult.

But After awhile of sitting with the grief, I began to realize why: It wasn’t the object at all, but the meaning it held. I was ultimately coming to terms with the fact that I don’t have babies anymore. After 18 years, we officially have no-one to pass toys and books and clothes down to. There is no need to open up the baby bins and pull out our favorites. Those things have reached the end of the line and it was time for them to move on. Even writing that ties my stomach in knots. Leopold is not a baby, nor is he a toddler anymore—and there is no-one to fill his shoes—literally. 🙁 I have A LOT of letting go to do in that department. For now, I have a favorites bin that my heart-wrenching baby stuff goes into (well, a few bins…it’s a process).

In many ways tidying up and agreeing to live more minimally has helped me do more than reclaim my sanity. Clutter takes time to clean, takes money to purchase and then store and ultimately blocks joy and serenity, preventing personal growth. But cutting it all loose enables the process of letting go, of acceptance and finally, creating space for living a better life. Not just for you, but for your whole family.

Trust me….you don’t want to see the before images….

Together we’ve set a goal: Can the things we let go of be turned into money and be put into savings? Can every impulse to buy something also get turned over to savings as well? Can that savings amass to the point of buying us all that vacation we’ve been talking about going on for years? The answer is yes. It’s time for a new chapter for our family. We’re learning that being together is all we really need.

Almost A Teenager (Hint: They STILL Need You)

by SoCalledMom · Sep 30, 2017

Towards the end of summer, my middle kid, MJ, expressed some big plans, in her usual way: quietly but with conviction.

Now that school is in full swing, she has shown me that these So-Called Plans are very much in the works.

When your child enters 6th grade, it raises no red flags of potential mother daughter disconnect–at least it didn’t for me. This is the age they’re still trying to figure out what is going on and how to fit in–without looking like they’re trying too hard. To them, you still pretty much know everything and are their greatest advocate. But 7th grade is a different story. They have crafted their own road map now, and it looks nothing like the one you gave them. They have it completely dialed, know the rough terrain and are willing to plow through it and all we can do is act like the back seat driver from here on out.

But I wondered how quickly MJ would develop this 7th grade mentality–for survival if anything else, because she was new to this middle school, neighborhood, city and state. Just add hormones and sudden self-awareness and I’ve got a whole new kid. And her summertime promises of I’m going to be popular and I’m going to make my own path had me eating out of her hand like a squirrel: Yes! Chomp chomp chomp! You got this! Chomp chomp!

However, she is quiet and a little quirky and until last week, kind of oblivious to her looks. And so, the intersection of popularity and making your own path tend to, well, never ever intersect. Until she got out her new road map and made some real adjustments and is in the process of figuring out how to navigate on her own.

The upside is that she has the entire school to herself this year. There are no siblings to relay unwanted stories up the food chain and she can try out new versions of herself without anyone reporting it to home base. She has complete authority to shape shift into whomever she wants, free from any of our judgement, which is great. I mean, it’s one thing to be the quiet middle child in a blended family with seven kids—it’s another thing to be the only one in your family with a new school as the center of your universe.

I have been checking out parenting books from the library like mad lately. I tend to flock to this information haven whenever I feel a developmental crisis coming on. I check out books with titles like “Are my kids on track?” and “Mothering with Courage” and really anything that has the word teenager in it. Like, my check out status has my librarian believing I’ve never done this before. These library binges for me are much like shopping when you’re hungry: Everything looks good. But, I’m not gonna lie, I’m awful at soaking up this information. Most of the time it doesn’t stick because it doesn’t apply. There are too many variables to consider (like having a big family), so I just use it as material to help me fall asleep at night and hope the rest of the words soak into my brain while I’m in La La Land. Well that and I just try to stay on the same road she’s on, even though she’s clearly signaled she’s in the passing lane.

Let me just say that sometimes, lessons from the middle child can be the most pleasant—even though we’re talking about another one of my tweens, transforming into a teen and dodging my childhood development desire for a pat on the back. But there’s still time to get this right! Even though I’m prepared to use my husband as a meat shield while another one of our kids turns 13, I’m working on indulging her perspective mid-metamorphosis.

The jump from tween to teen is a big one. It means leaving awkwardness behind and becoming mindful of making a place for yourself in the world. It also means suddenly caring about how you might look to others. This is a complex stage because I always want my kids to just be themselves, to not feel as though they need to conform. This is how we make the world a different and more forgiving place. But I’m just now learning that it’s just as important for them to try out other versions of themselves, knowing that this is who they are. I’m just happy to still play a part, even if it’s in the smallest of ways.

So Called Mom

Seven Kindergartens Later: So Called Loneliness

by SoCalledMom · Sep 23, 2017

This has been a tough week…

I have been struggling with separation anxiety all week, now that all seven of my kids are finally school age, i.e. not at home anymore. I believe that in the ring of getting older, this is the right hook of empty nest syndrome, with the final jab knocking me down for the count: the kids leaving home for good.

No matter how prepared I think I am, I’m just not. I know I parade around on this page as though I haven’t given up my life for my kids, but when they’re gone like this, I realize how much I actually have. I went from grasping tiny and even medium sized hands for years to grasping at straws–in what feels like no time at all.

When Pippin and I met, it was an instant party.

Combined, we had 5 kids under age 6 when we got together. And because that wasn’t enough, we had two more. We were young ourselves, and Pippin was the perfect partner in all the blended chaos. I remember reading back then about how blended families have a 25% chance of making it past a year before they are usually faced with another divorce. That figure crushed me. I understood why, but when we blazed a trail past each year, still together and still very much in love, I knew we had cracked the code. I felt lucky, overwhelmed, tired, but well-loved and in so many different ways.

I had kids that were mine that weren’t his; kids that were his that weren’t mine; and we had kids together. It wasn’t long before I became concerned that each child would feel lost in our gaggle and made it my personal quest to ensure each one would find their way, and seek out who they are, what makes them unique, and still a very necessary cog in our crazy family wheel.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because not once did I ever think it would change.

Why? Because when we were all together, piled in our 12 passenger Econoline, or all attempting to sleep on the same never-big-enough mattress in the wee hours of the morning when they were collectively much smaller, everything was perfect. I mean, we were far from normal, but this was everything I ever wanted, without really knowing it.

Everyone around me was shocked: She could handle seven kids, let alone one? Yessir, and these kids were everything that defined, or re-defined, family for me: wacky, emotional, hilarious and inconvenient–but chock full of endless, breathtaking love. No wonder I handed over my life to them–what in the hell was I before them? I couldn’t remember because I scrubbed it from my mind for a reason. This was my life now: a permanent upgrade–or so I thought.

Fast forward to today.

Imagine seven different kindergarten goodbyes, spread out over 13 years. You’d think I was a pro by now and although I can handle back to school paperwork in my sleep these days and have even gotten really good at turning down school-wide pleas for me to join the PTA (I jest), I’m definitely not good at the letting go thing. And it’s especially compounded when they are doing so well away from me, and I need to pretend that I am too.

That’s the best picture I’ve seen you draw. You made it all the way across the monkey bars with no help? You spelled your entire name with no help? You check out a library book on spiders all by yourself? Oh, what did I do today? Well, I thought of how great you are doing and then I did some laundry. Unfortunately I had no planned response in my back pocket to offer–that was better at least, than a soggy sandwich reply like thinking of you and laundry.

So the best thing I can do for myself is to look for a job; I simply can’t take the quiet. They go do their thing during the day and I go and do mine and we can talk about it each night and I can adjust. Slowly but surely. So that I can ultimately get myself ready for those much bigger goodbyes coming down the line…and if I’m not mistaken, my first is about seven months out.

Better get good at this,

So-Called Mom

So-Called FREE Time: Back to School

by SoCalledMom · Sep 15, 2017

Remember this? Working on science fair projects while cleaning pasta sauce off the kitchen ceiling, balancing a gnarly diaper in one hand and a smelly baby in the other, running to answer the door because the electrical guy needs access to the breaker box (wherever that is) while the doctor’s office is calling to reschedule the appointment you’d forgotten about anyway? That was me last year. This year? Not so much, and I’m kind of weirded out by it.

Those were the days when we’d get through it all by sucking down wine at the end of the night and hopefully stealing a late night soak in the tub to wash it all (including that baby poop smell) down the drain. We’d let our minds sneak off to that place that we fondly recall as the days before we had kids…

Well, now that every last one of the kids is in school, we have free time again. And although it’s different now, and there’s really no getting back to that pre-kids place, do we know what the hell to do with ourselves? I don’t. And I didn’t prepare for it either.

What is it about being a mom that keeps us laser focused on everything else but ourselves? In the meantime, we’ve forgotten who we are as beautiful women, as a person with a passion, and a human being who makes mistakes. But in the process of being a perfect mom who balances the universe on our shoulders, never letting our kids down, we’re letting ourselves down and running ourselves into the ground–albeit with a (forced) smile on our face.

The worst part? No one really asks this of us. We just voluntarily throw ourselves off the cliff like lemmings, landing face-first and resentful as this weeks trending mom-martyr. And so, when life ~~presents us~~ crowns us with a bundle of free time each day, we sort of let it eat us alive, rather than the other way around. At least that is how I have felt the first couple of weeks have been since back-to-school surprised me with this awkward emptiness. I have not dominated my use of free time. It has knocked me out and I’m trying to get up gracefully, like it never happened.

So, check out the video above, where I detail five ways us So-Called Moms can get our groove back. If you have something to add, please do so by plugging your ideas into the comments below; I’d love to know what you do to make the most out of your time.

Have the most fabulous weekend ever,

So-Called Mom

Back to School: KINDERGARTEN FAIL

by SoCalledMom · Sep 9, 2017

I still can’t decide if missing my So-Called Baby’s first day of kindergarten has done me any favors or not.

And when I say, miss, I mean really miss, as in all of us, missing kindergarten–including the kindergartener. That was a serious wtf moment on my part.

Is there anything worse than waltzing in a day late, becoming an instant winner for the Most Clueless Parent award?

No, there isn’t.

But, in the So-Called Mom spirit, I have discovered the bright side to screwing up (again). And that is: It’s far less painful to send your last baby off to school when you don’t have time to wallow in the loss. I was just getting ready to dip my toe in to test those wallowing waters, when I got the call from the school essentially shouting: Come on in, the water’s fine!

see video:

And it is fine. I just feel a little short changed. I wanted the same experience as any other mom. I wanted to be able to weep like an idiot while pretending to not nurture the insecurity of my nervous, new-backpack-clinging kid. I wanted to tear him off of my leg in the classroom and leave so I could walk my trauma down the hall like it was a life sentence.

Instead, we skipped all that nonsense and shoehorned ourselves into a no-big-deal second day at school.

Was it for the better? I’m leaning towards yes, but I don’t know if that’s just to make myself feel good about messing it up. Everything happens for a reason–so maybe this was to make the transition slightly more sane.

In any case, I need to step up my game so the teacher knows I’m not a flake (because I’m not). I signed up to volunteer in the classroom, and I really want to be one of those very present and very dependable moms at school. Of course I’ll make 20 color copies and staple packets for you. Of course I’ll read age-appropriate stories to them while you grade papers. Of course I’ll stand outside in the rain during recess for extra supervision. The fact that I forgot the first day of school doesn’t mean anything–a mere coincidence beyond my control.

Even if I become the New (and Improved) So-Called School Super Mom, it doesn’t take away the fact that I have never-before-seen free time on my hands. Besides cleaning the house like a psycho while the kids are gone, I think I’m going to make some intentional plans with my husband to get us both on the same page again. We’ll see if we remember each others names first and then go from there.

So-Called Mom

One Size Fits NONE Parenting

by SoCalledMom · Sep 7, 2017

Almost 20 years ago, I thought I could master parenting with one kid, and the rest would follow suit:

Raising all my other kids would be an effortless, sweat-free cake walk and I could dust my hands off at the finish line (with plenty of stamina left) and say: Well, that was really something. I’m glad I was so focused on being a good parent straight out of the gate. Yay me!

(I’ll pause to allow you to collect yourself from laughing on the floor.)

To this day, I’m not sure why I thought it would be so easy.

But one thing is for sure: parenting seven kids isn’t like having a full time job. It’s like having SEVEN full time jobs. That I volunteer at, have cleaned a lot of poop at, and if it were considered a “real job” (ahem), I’d be logging complaints with HR all day, every day (You put the rings from my jewelry box on your WHAT?!? And this isn’t the first time???). You get the idea, I’m sure.

That’s why Back to School can be such a circus around here. If I’m not tearing out my hair trying to get my nearing adult teen on a path out of the house, I’m chasing down a school bus with MJ (or chasing after her with her lunch, her flute, her backpack, her anything), or answering my phone only to discover that the So-Called Baby’s first day of kindergarten was missed because I put the wrong day on my calendar. It was TODAY?? But my letter said the….oh….today. Yes, yes, he will be there tomorrow. Sorry about that!

So much for effortless & sweat-free!

Although every one of my kids needs something special, different or a certain way to ensure semi-success, and my calendar is impossible to nail down, and so is my timeliness and, well, brain–I somehow love it. I can juggle, I can multi-task, I can withstand kid-based torture like a Navy Seal on zero sleep–even though I’m always just slightly drowning in it all. I’m grateful they broke the mold after each kid arrived because there is no room for cut-and-paste parenting in this family. By fair means or foul, these kids keeps me going.

So-Called Mom