A Little Walk

Why do we protest? What do we tell our kids and family members who do not understand the protest?

I recently came across what is one of the most powerful example of WHY people who gather are actually doing something. For those who "don't understand" why there was a March on Washington organized by Women... it is to bring attention to a large number of issue that still need attention. Yes it really is that simple. The best sign of the day was "I can't believe I still have to protest this sh$t."

Want to relate to kids about the March? Read further below the grey "A Little Walk."

Examples from History include ---

People want to belittle this effort by calling it a "little walk." "What's a little walk going to do," they say.

A little walk by protesters to Boston Harbor sparked a nation's independence from a monarchy. 

A little walk from Selma to Montgomery, and from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial sparked the enactment of civil rights legislation for the American descendants of former slaves and changed the world's conscience about hate and the importance of nonviolent protest against the evils of this world.

A little walk by students and young people to Washington, DC helped to change America's conscience about the Vietnam War. 

A little walk by a Chinese boy in Tianamin Square helped the world see the oppressive regime of the People's Republic of China.

A little walk by protesters in Cape Town, galvanized the world against South Africa's apartheid regime, and helped to free the Freedom Fighter who was in jail for over 2 decades, who would one day become South Africa's first Black President. 

A little walk by tired and frustrated citizens to Tahir Square in Egypt caused a 30 year President to resign. 

Little walks are powerful and can change a nation. Little walks are powerful and can change the world.

#WhyIMarch 

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A series of Photos from the Protest are available thru my Flickr Feed. Click on it.

#WhyIMarch our photos from the Chicago Women's March on Washington. March, 2017

My older son initially did not want to attend the march with mom. He was concerned about it being a "Women's March" and being the only boy there. My husband, a history buff reminded him about the March's he is learning about in his 6th grade class. King, Freedan, Civil Rights, ERA, etc. The conversation was "go and take part in something bigger than you." You don't want to regret not going when in 20 years people will probably talk about this March and this Election, you can say you were a part of it.  Yes, it really is that simple to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. 

"Yes, it really is that simple 

to be a part of something 

bigger than ourselves. " - Husband

And my husband for safety sake did not want me to take the little ones. One day earlier, in Washington during President Trump's inauguration the protests did get violent and vandalism occurred at the corner Starbuck's. For that reason, if I would need to "run away from danger," Older Son can keep up with you. I am happy to report that the purported nearly 250,000 who attended were peaceful with no violence reported.

If you are reading this post, please post a comment below on what you liked - or didn't  - about this read. Does the topic interest you and you want to know more? Submit a question and I am happy to tackle it.

I add to this sentiment . . . Walk with me my sister and together we can change the world!

Make Mistakes, breathe, reflect and Laugh.Out.Loud and walk with me sister.

Behind the Tag Line How I Make Mistakes, Breathe, Reflect and LaughOut Loud

The Story behind the blog tag line ...

My original tag line was "The Days are Long, the Years are short," with a later added: "Enjoy every moment." All true. I witnessed how quickly my son grew, daily changes in him physically, and the pace at which he learned new things and built on those ideas blew me away. But then came my oh so many mommy mistakes. Make Mistakes I realized that I make a lot of mistakes, a lot. 

Make Mistakes

In our projects where I expected my then 2-year old to attach stickers "exactly" in the right place. In my "quick to anger"  behaviors. In how I handled situations "badly"... mistakes were everywhere. And even tho I did many things well (see other blog posts where we are having more fun than not) my personal irritation was my own mistakes. I felt bad. I felt I was a mommy failure. 

"I felt bad. I felt I was a mommy failure." 

It's a bad mix of being type A, and my Catholic upbringing. Thanks sister(s) Xavier, Vienia, and the like. But I knew I wouldn't want to stay at home if I kept feeling guilty. I think I offset my guilt with some of those crazy over the top projects. The kids scrapbooks with all our cool projects, especially "Project time with Magazine clippings" - my favorite. And perhaps that's why I always took young son everywhere, cool fun activities which he loved were perhaps subconsciously to help make up for all that yelling. (I'm rattling thru a reflection here, your living a moment of reflection in my head.) Everything's meant to be tho. You can't grow without failure to learn from. 

Reflect

I needed to yell, like I heard often in my childhood, so I COULD CHANGE. I needed to have Catholic Guilt so I COULD CHANGE and grow to not feel bad any more. And into my life came reflection. I can say it was life changing! I was introduced to "reflecting" by my husband. (It was a "new to me" and "new theory" being used by his Principal Preparation Certification Program. I started to reflect on my mommy mistakes, and I CHOSE to do things differently, from yelling at my kids, breaking the cycle in our family multi-generational get angry and yell at kids, changing how I talk (tone and words) to my kids, our approach to school, etc., etc., etc., Reflecting became a part of my mommy process. And its hard, sometimes I'd cry and my behavior earlier in the day. "How could I ...." 

I didn't always journal about it, but I did often discuss things with my hubby, my mom, some other close friends, and then  I'd often blog about those big moments. But mostly the work was for me, to acknowledge and commit to change. Yelling and criticizing is just not an option. Realizing, and then embracing, that my kids and others will do things differently and work at their own pace. And accept it!

"I discovered a better closing thought for me: I would definitely continue to Make Mistakes. Even tho I learn everyday ..."

Now, I reflect (often and on everything) and learn from those faux pas. And so, I discovered a better closing thought for me: I would definitely continue to Make Mistakes. Even tho I learn everyday, mistakes and accidents still happen, far less often, but they do happen on occasion.

Breathe 

My skill I had mastered to stop the anger was taking a deep breath, and Breathing in helped me let it go (and stop getting mad at everything). I also witnessed my younger son start overreacting to minor situations in a way older son hadn't. I knew more change needed to happen. Daniel Tiger had a great episode and song we'd sing, when you get mad, taking a deep breath & count to 5. It helped younger son and me. This step doesn't stop, and doesn't end. Anger is something deep inside of us. Sometimes warranted, and sometimes simply and overreaction, I still have some triggers, but I'm learning, and re-learning to transcend that anger, and transition it to better emotional responses instead. Frustration is okay, yelling is not. 

Laugh.Out.Loud 

I'm a crazy woman. I'm funny, I love to laugh, I love to play and have fun. I often will push "social" boundaries and live a little on the "safe" edge, to do what's write or get a laugh. Either way, I laugh at myself, often. I have to because my life can get a little,looney with my 3 monkeys. I love them passionately with all my soul! And I have to laugh to keep my sanity. The periods in between the words emphasize that's the end... The Laughter should be the final phase, to living, loving, and being with kids should often be days filled with lots and lots of laughter. I laugh out loud at myself, and with them. 

I do it all for these 3. Always worth it. 

And so... Make mistakes. Breathe, Reflect, and Laugh.Out.Loud

Our 8th Birthday Experience and the Blunders and Hurdles to get there.

There's two parts of the story your going to read here:

Part I - My Sons 8th Birthday Experience and His Treasure Map Adventure that went off without a hitch

Part II - You can see all the blunders of the day and where mom made plenty of mistakes. (Go ahead, skip to part II). I have a little "sub-title" to this post called "Moms shouldn't be perfect because were Ruining our sons chances of picking a Normal Girl as a wife!"

I'm preparing for my sons 8th birthday. We're visiting my mom in Indiana. The visit is always fun, and we knew he'd love celebrating his "birthday experience" here. (More on no party birthdays in a separate post.) He chose pancakes for breakfast, so we whipped some up in the pan with the blueberries that grandma picked up at the blueberry farm earlier in the week. The pancakes are my special ones made from my "air batter" which I whip the egg whites first, incorporating air, this helps my pancakes be extra light - and not the hard bricks they used to be (read more on things I do differently here at the Old Mom meet New Mom post).

Meanwhile, inspiration struck, so I've ripped up a paper bag for 'an authentic look' to draw my sons birthday present treasure map. He wanted to "hunt" for his gift like Indiana Jones.

So I thought through a path and then started drawing his map.. Grandmas house is in the middle. 

areyousureaboutthatblog Birthday Treasure Map

Yes this was a "whipped" up map, complete with 6 post-its "Clues" like: "Your gift rhymes with words like tramp, stamp, lamp, and mean, bean, lean." (He's practicing reading and doesn't even know it!) Another clue was "your presents under something Big, Tall, and is spelled with 4 letters: _ _ _ _ ." So after their cartoon time I set up our pancake breakfast, and the boys served themselves. That's our new thing, self serving portions at mealtime. I made clear I need to check on his present, and he can't follow me because he'll ruin his own adventure, and that's no fun. So he 'sent me out' around the house to make sure everything was set, and I put out the clues.

He enjoyed the hunt. And this was the part of the story of that went well.

The Blunders of the Day

So I'm not the perfect mom. There were some my real blunders today. I was cranky on his birthday morning but I still kissed him when he came to my bed, but his cough would've woken baby girl who still sleeps in my bed, so I asked him to go watch tv, as I snoozed a little longer. This birthday morning I forgot he wanted a blueberry smile pancake, so I scraped down the bowl for a teeny tiny bit of batter to make the pancake, last, and put the blueberry eyes and smiley face in to which the blueberry fell out as it was plated.

Then I put a wet spoon on the map I had just made, cringing that it'd bleed thru the markers and clues. I also realized that I had no gift from my young son to his brother. We didn't scrape some time together for even a card. (At dinner I whispered, "give your brother a small plate of your fries and tell him 'Happy Birthday!" Birthday boy was happy with that.) And as for our gift I hadn't even bought anything until "accidentally" seeing that trampoline the day before at our Salvation Army Galux. (Galux is family 'code' for thrift store. In Poland Galux was the Nordstrom's or What was the Woolworths of department stores. So appropo.) It was new and $9.98 btw. On the flip side I'm pretty good at coming up with little clever ideas so I had a backup gift plan.

But then I was thinking, it's a good that I screw up. Not such a terrible screw up, but its not the perfection that the Facebook pictures make it seem to be. Because one day my sons will want to find a partner in life, and if boys look for girls similar to their moms, I can't be "perfect" because then he will never get married!?! What things will she need to perfectly do for him? Never burn his food? Never miss buying a gift? Who's perfect? And do I want a perfect Daughter in Law? No thank you. I do not want Barbie figure, Martha Stewart cookin, Nanny Jo at my house! I want her to be normal. Not high maintenance perfection. To laugh at her mistakes and learn from them. Laugh.Out.Loud. I want her to be honest to herself and him when things go crazy.... And things will go wrong,... they have to, because that's Life, forks in the road are everywhere, she will have some coping skills to deal with it. Hopefully the partner t-he-y marries stays calm at a dilemma seeing an adventure, an opportunity for trying something new, and not a pitch fork!

And I admit that I mess up to my kids for partially this reason. Life doesn't always go the way we want. Then they see how mom handles that dilemma. And hopefully pick a girl who adjust easily too. (And I'm being honest with the boys 1. because that helps build their character, 2. they won't say I lied to them while they were growing up, 3. and I'm praying my honesty will lead to less "mom you screwed me up because..." ). 

So ladies, (and dads striving at perfection, this applies to us all) don't be the perfect mom. Daughter-in-Law's thank me later. 

The days are long the years are short. Make mistakes, breath, reflect, and don't forget to laugh.out.loud.