For the Love of a Child

I just love sitting next to my almost three year old as he is “reading” a book or looking at family pictures. I have found that lately, if I just let him explore freely, he is so intrigued by what he sees in front of him that at times it is hard for him to contain himself. I sit back and just observe and sure enough the questions and comments start pouring out of him. Like a strong current in a stream of unconscious quandaries, he can hardly finish one thought as the next one pops into his mind, barely leaving enough time for me to validate his observation or answer his question. “Look at that mommy, it’s a tow truck just like Mater” “What’s that? Oh that’s a doggy!” “A stegosaurus says ROAR!” “That’s a picture of Mommy, Daddy , Sean and Brayden” “We rode the camel ‘member??” I just LOVE listening and answering and questioning and exploring with him until a day about a month ago when he asked a question that for the first time in his short 3 years of life I simply could not answer.

While making my bed one morning, Sean spotted an album of pictures that I had put together from when he was just born. He pointed to the baby picture on the front and said, “Mommy is that Brayden?” I explained to him that no, in fact it was a picture of him when he was a baby and after clearing up the confusion that he wasn’t always a “big boy,” he wanted to look through it, and of course I handed it to him and has he sat on the chair in my bedroom and started leafing through it I continued making my bed. “There’s mommy” “there’s daddy” “there’s baby sean” “there’s daddy and sean” “there’s the doctor” and so on and so forth. I was barely paying attention to him until he suddenly stopped and asked me “mommy, who’s that?” He must have felt that I was brushing him off when I started rambling names of the people who came to visit him in the hospital that he “knows” until I saw the picture he had stopped at and to almost to add to my distress he repeated “mommy, who’s that?”

How do you explain to a toddler that sometimes family members don’t get along and actually choose to not play a role in one another’s lives? I questioned myself over and over again and of course do what I always do when I don’t know the answer to something....I went to google it ;) When I went to start typing in the search box, I didn’t know what to write.... “explaining strained family relationships to a toddler” “distant family members” “children and nonexistent family members” I typed, searched, erased, re-typed and became increasingly frustrated with the lack of relevant results to no avail. I considered calling mental health and consulting with a therapist that specialized in child or family relationships or contacting a family support relevant for pointers of how, if and when to explain this stressful dynamic to him. Do I tell him who this person in many of our family albums is? Do I pretend that they are merely a ghost haunting our photos of a relationship past and that they don’t exist in his little world? How would you even begin to explain to him how this person wouldn’t even make an effort to look past their own issues with me to have a relationship with him? It kept me up for nights at a time even to think that my three year old who is SO loved by so many people would crumble knowing that there is at the very least one person out there in this world whom he simply does not matter to.

As a parent I think that it is part of that unwritten code that you would do anything and everything to protect, advocate for and support your child. What happens when it comes to something that is not only out of your control-it isn’t even an option? Well, for me I allowed myself to become increasingly bitter and angry about it though the years but somewhere it had to come to an end. I have given this person WAY too many chances to make things right. I have forgiven (never forgotten) the words and actions that hurt my feelings and those of others around me. I have been shocked and awed to no end when just one person could cause such detrimental damage to so many different intertwined family relationships. I was disappointed when family members chose to “take sides” (even when they claimed that they weren’t doing just that) it was so fast and so obvious visions of Moses parting the Red Sea come to mind. Even after years of disagreements, name-calling, mean spirited e-mails/text messages and storming out of family events and all that has happened...my last attempt was nothing short of begging to look at the big picture (whilst swallowing my own pride) and move past the “past” and build a relationship for my children’s sake so they would grow up surrounded by the type of extended family that everyone dreams of when they are getting married. The type of family that I thought I had finally acquired.

After getting bitter and angry and taking it personally that my children were being short-changed of family members it was time to just cut my losses and realize that we still have SO MANY people who love us and love us 100% unconditionally. I have really lost too many family members who fought the good fight through illnesses and pain to stay with us for a few extra minutes, hours or days just to hold on to that time together-that it made me so angry that anyone would CHOOSE to consciously give that up.

After all of this I have undoubtedly become a “relationship snob.” You know the kind....my mantra is “everyone should consider themselves lucky to be a part of our life.” I truly believe it. I do!! We are great people and we have wonderful children and living by that virtue I began to see and appreciate family members in a whole different light. The ones who scraped and scrounged every last penny together to come visit us. The ones who give up sleep, go without lunch or pass up phone calls to “play” with the kids over the computer. The ones who know about favorite stuffed animals, which “boo-boo’s” to bring up and songs to sing to grab the kids’ attention. The ones who will sit through a 40 minute “conversation” with Sean over the phone. The ones who have looked beyond the trials of a (long and drawn out) disagreement and acknowledge there are two innocent, and wonderfully delicious children that they are missing out on the opportunity to get to know. It has helped us to work through this family dynamic constructively and positively.

My reasoning for coming to this conclusion you ask?? We live far away. We have made huge efforts to “fix” things. We have two young children to be role models for. We want our children to grow up knowing that they are loved. We want our kids to understand that it is not OK to treat people with any sort of disrespect. We are responsible to instill feelings of empathy and self-worth and to do so we need to show what good examples of them are. We need to be sure that we are setting our children up to be able to regulate their emotions and know that they are not above the laws of human and mutual consideration. We are teaching our boys that the world is far from perfect out there and when facing challenges (whether academic, interpersonal or work related) they can’t give up so easily when things don’t go their way. We have values and morals and life rules that allow us to thrive as a couple, as a family and we are not willing to compromise for people who bring anything but positive into our lives. So I ask, what WOULDN'T you do, for the love of a child?

Ciao 4 Now

~L

It’s Nothing Personal.....

I read an article recently that stated that the original purpose of social networking sites was “to reinforce established friendships and form bonds with new friends” and this got me thinking if this is REALLY what is being accomplished or has it made us as a society completely passive when it comes to forming and strengthening interpersonal relationships with others. Two times last week alone, people claimed to “know” me....I mean, I AM kind of a big deal (at least in my mind) but recently, after thinking a lot about (and being a little disappointed by) the relationships that have been strained in my life as an indirect result of social networking sites I wanted to re-evaluate the balance of my virtual and real life worlds.

Let’s get this straight....just because a friend of a friend of a neighbor’s dog walker’s uncle is a facebook friend of yours that by proxy DOES NOT mean that they “know” you. If you have read a post or a blog or seen a tagged picture of a person on someone else's page....it doesn't mean you know them. Aside from the fact that you virtually need a security clearance and must provide a DNA sample to even see my page if you are not within my Circle of Trust....I wonder what has happened to interpersonal relationships that a simple phone call has become extinct. I am not just talking about friends and acquaintances here...it has sadly tricked down to family members as well....just because you see and read about what we are doing it doesn’t make up for the fact that before (in this case) facebook came into our lives...we used to have to actually talk about, ask about and fight about things face to face-or at least over the phone. Will it ever be the same again?

For those of you who really “know” me...you would know that when you start a sentence “Hey I saw your post today” or “Yeah I read about it on your page” it not only makes me cringe but actually I must admit I start to see red. The fact that I have actually had real life people that know me in the physical and not only in the virtual sense (and in some cases are related to me) comment about hospital visits, the birth of a child(ren) and a plethora of other major “real life” happenings that they read about on facebook makes me wonder how connected we are as a society to the internet has actually made us lose connectivity with the real world. I have checked my phone...it still works...imagine that!!

People (yes, and I am as guilty as the next person) have began making the mistake of believing that since it is so easy to connect with others online, these online relationships are more

intimate and meaningful than they really are. In my opinion we have started to lose touch with“real” relationships and we need to regain that balance before it is too late.

We waste so much time writing, posting, commenting and liking things on people’s pages that maybe you forget that some of these people you would never even speak to if you saw them at the grocery store. We compare ourselves to others, we keep tabs on who is going where and with whom and we think that we can post anything and everything and it is “safe.” I will be the FIRST to admit that I was getting so wrapped up in the virtual world that I began losing sight of my priorities.

After some intense idiotic drama that was being fueled by nothing other than social networking...this New Year’s I made a clear concise resolution and stuck to it for once....I went offline....I deactivated my account, took it off my blackberry and took a break from my beloved guilty pleasure facebook. It was torture!! At first it was like a drug addict coming clean-I had withdrawals, I was anxious and felt as if I was “missing out” on something. I began missing my “friends” and thought that I would never be able to keep in touch with the people I left behind when I moved out of the country. I was sick about it, I couldn’t sleep, I was angry at the people who I felt caused me to take down my profile and I refused to go back online at the fear that the drama would begin all over again. I decided that I would not allow myself to reactivate my account until after I felt like I could handle being back I made rules for myself and it helped me keep in touch with the people who are truly meaningful in my life and really put my relationships into perspective.

Being the OCD person that I am, I made an outline of my defriending policy and actually made myself click THAT button. “Are you sure you want to remove_______as your friend?” click Ummmm...here we go..... “Remove from Friends” click...I started going through the stages of grief but then I regained my focus and it was then an addiction....I began going through the 200-something “friends” and asking myself “WHY on earth are YOU here??”

-anyone I do not see (or care to see) on a regular basis here in Spain or back in the States-click

-anyone who does not call our home to chat and wouldn’t even know my phone number if they WANTED to call -click

-anyone who is a facebook “friend” from my past but not a real life friend that facebook has allowed me to reconnect with and rebuild a real life friendship with -click

-any family members that used facebook as their ONLY means of SPYING....I mean.....“keeping up” with our life and would be overly critical of anything remotely personal that I posted -click

-anyone who uses their page as a personal homage to what a great person they are and posts things that are inappropriate and/or extremely judgmental -click

Thus my 2011 defriending campaign began-not out of mean spirited ideals but as a way of proving to myself that it was easy to say that these people are my friends when in reality....we were nothing short of strangers.

I felt better about the whole situation. I was refreshed energized and when I felt ready I reactivated my account (a hundred plus lighter). I DID receive some VERY negative feedback from some family members whom shall remain nameless. Though I was upset that such hurtful words and judgements on my character were hurled my way and in some cases out of NOWHERE from people that think they “knew” me....I have come to thoroughly understand (in recent years) jealousy, negativity and downright meanness in their raw forms-it’s not pretty. My response to all of it???NOTHING AT ALL-radio silence....I will not buy into any drama on the internet anymore I am sure that by now the guilty parties have seen the error of their ways but unfortunately once you use the internet to do your dirty work it is there (and saved) until the end of time.

My resolution is still one of my top priorities and I am still working hard to prove to myself that I can do it...I have made it a point to call rather than post/email/text, I (try to) get my birthday/thank you/get well/thinking of you cards out on time, I have limited my online time and am working on fostering my real life relationships with people who play a positive and valuable role in my life. I feel good about it and for all of the “friends” out there that I let go in the process.....I hope they know that it’s nothing personal.

Ciao 4 Now

~L

The Ole’ Ball and Chain...and Other Marriage Musings

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution.

~ Henry Louis Mencken

Why is it when some people hear that someone is newly engaged they immediately think “another one bites the dust”? What is it with the idea of marriage that prompts the notions of a last night of freedom, visions of being in the “doghouse,” arguments with a jealous spouse and overall views of single friends as being the “lucky ones?” Some feel that they need to keep their own separate and independent identities in fear that without their individual fulfillment their marriage would not survive. Marriage is NOT a death sentence then again marriage is also not for everyone but I would like to think that when you find that special someone and decide to tie that proverbial knot, you are in it for the right reasons and that all the “negatives” of being married are nothing but an urban legend. I have come to question at times exactly why I was made to feel that I was “missing out” on the key to being one of those marriage complainers?

Why do I have nothing to be chronically upset about, jealous of, or otherwise sour about when thinking of my own marriage? I heard that it was because we were still in the “honeymoon phase,” some made comments that made us (as a couple) feel that we were immature, overly dependent on one another, and still others even went as far and used the term “selfish” when we (my husband and I) put our feelings and the values of our marriage and children ahead of all else when dealing with situations. Let me put it on record that I feel that my husband is one of those truly wonderful men. He is simply THE BEST. He is one of those chick flick “nice guys” (you know the type: a perfect mix of best friend, comedian, psychologist, romantic and athlete all tied up in a neat little box).

We have an AMAZING time traveling the world together and keep one another laughing constantly and obsessivly quoting our favorite movies until one of us cracks up uncontrolably. We are so open and honest with one another that it makes some of our family members uncomfortable-but for us it works. We had our first date, fell madly in love and were engaged all within the whirlwind of 4 months. We were met with some enthusiasm, some shock, a smattering of disbelief and a touch of “what were you thinking?” We didn’t care...the old saying “when you know you know” kept repeating in our heads...and we have never looked back since. Now, many moves, two kids and five years later we are still truly, madly and deeply happy with one another-so WHY do others’ words still haunt me?? In my most recent and predictable monthly stop at the “self help” section of the library, I picked up the book Lucky in Love by Catherine Johnson Ph.D. I wasn’t even 20 pages in when I finally had my “ah ha” moment. The author made a reference to couples that are thriving (basically “alive” to their partner; emotionally, intellectually, physically present in the other’s existence and profoundly and passionately involved with one another) as “vital couples”. “...love at first sight is a real phenomenon, the only qualifier being that vital couples have more to go on than just sight alone. For them it is more a case of love at first exchange. From the first moment these men and women speak, they fall into the rhythms and cadences of long familiarity. For many, this feeling never fades.” So as we met at a local bar, shared a few laughs about some awkward situations we were put in, and cheered for our Yankees five years ago today, we were unknowingly becoming one of those well kept secrets in our own anti-happily-ever-after society.

We are one another’s better half and now I know that I shouldn’t be ashamed to proudly announce it... “ I just wanted to shout it from on top of a mountain. But I didn't have a mountain. I had a newsroom and a camera.” Well actually I just have a computer and a blog so....here is to the next 5 years and all those other happily ever afters out there!! <3 U M :)

Ciao 4 Now

~L

To Blog....Or Not To Blog....

Ok, here it goes...I have WANTED to start up a blog for a loooooong time but then kids, moves and life got in the way! I am a mom of two wonderfully exhausting little boys, a lucky in love wife, a teacher on a break from teaching, a want-to-be heath nut, an obsessive traveler, a laundry hater, a sister and daughter of an awesome brother and two of the world's best parents, a social networking junkie and now I have added blogger to the ever changing and growing list of things that make me who I am ;) I LOVE to think about and share experiences that made me laugh, cry & cringe...above all I love to put this crazy life of mine under a microscope and pick it apart one sarcastic comment at a time. None of our lives are sunshine and rainbows all the time but I'd like to think that the more we share the more we realize that we may NOT be the only one going through a particular situation. If you came here looking for a blog about great craft ideas, martha stewart type recipes and posts about how much I LOVE every minute of motherhood, marriage and life in general..I suggest you quickly find your "back" button. Don't get me wrong...I have a GREAT life...I am just a tell it all and tell it like it is type of person. That being said-if you come across something you don't like or don't agree with...guess what? No one is holding you hostage here, feel free to leave at anytime. Feel free to comment, question or share a similar experience So sit back relax and I hope you enjoy reading my posts as much as I enjoy writing them!!

Ciao for Now!!

~Lena