I grew up in a home with parents of two different religions and was NEVER told that one religion was better than the other. Throughout my life, I have had friends of multiple religions (Catholicism, Methodist, Jewish, Muslim, Athiest, Christian, etc) and was raised to NOT judge them based on the symbol they wear on their neck or the building they use to worship but by the context of their actions and how they treat others. I also had friends of different color and ethnic backgrounds- African, Italian, German, Turkish, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Spaniard, etc. I was NEVER told that the borders that surround their country of origin was to be used to define them. I have also been friends with people who were considered poor and those who had an excess of money to spare. At NO time was I told that the rich person was better than the poor one simply by the dollar in their pocket. But despite how I was raised, I don’t understand how others were raised to be judgemental by saying that “those people” don’t deserve things, or people are of “the wrong color”, or because of the number of digits in their bank account they are “entitled” to be treated a certain way. What ever happened to treat others with respect, how you would want them to treat you, or to not judge a book by its cover?

Never apologize for who you are! NEVER apologize for being YOU!!! Sometimes we find ourselves in the hustle and bustle of the world and get carried away. We get caught up in the mundane, the comfortable, and the easy! It is so hard to not loose ourselves along the way. To not do what we must to either get by or fit in while doing what we must to sty true to ourselves. It’s hard to sometimes see that being individual, being special, being DIFFERENT indeed makes all the difference. Also who wants to go through life and only see and/or interact witb the same cookie cutter person over and over and over and over and over and over.

I raise my kids with the background of my religion plus pieces of our familys mixed heritage. I teach them that not only are they part of the unit of a family not every one from the family has to have the same views. There are times when I ask one of my children a question and she immediately looks at her big sister at which time I hush fhe older sister and encourage the one I asked to speak her OWN mind.

Disclaimer- It is VERY hard listening, absorbing, and encourageing six peoples individuality. It is a daily challenge but there is always the trying.

A tree stands tall and gives a lot of shade to the plants around it. It blocks the sun not allowing it to get heat, grow, or mature. It puts the surrounding plants in the dark. But it inly this for a short while. Soon the shadow of the tree moves there is warmth, there is growth. There is not a hate between the tree and the plant but instead some kind of respect and together the location can grow to be a beautful one with the tree and the plants growing and working together.

There are people who may not treat you like the tree. They will put you in tbe shade and keep you there. In the dark. Not growing. They will think the dark and the shade is where you belong, where you should be, and where should remain. They do not see your potential or want to keep you from actually reaching it.

You dont have to succumb to the darkness because someone put you there. Get determined, believe in yourslef even if you think it’s maybe a 1% chance of something happening. Keep that 1% of hope and you try your best to grow to reach to the sunlight. There still will be some of you still in the darkness but you know what…. the growing part is now on the other side and continues to grow, far away from the darkness.

How much sleep does one really need? Average amount of sleep a night is 7 to 9 hours. A child requires about 10 hours. A man requires about 15 hours. But how much does a MOM require? We deal with our babies waking up every 2 to 4 hours for bottle feedings, our kids waking up in the middle of night with nightmares and then staying awake with them until they calm down and fall back asleep, the general sleepless nights of worrying if you made the right choices for the day or if something you did has scarred them for the rest of their lives…. I have went on 2 hours sleep for the whole night as well as waking up every 3 hours for bottle feedings and then as soon as my children fell back asleep and my body decided it was exhausted another child woke up. And this went on for weeks! How I functioned every day on continuous disturbed sleep I will never know. Someone once said that a mom survives this routine on lots of coffee and lots of love for their kids. Is that really all a mother requires…. coffee and love?!

Nothing like an ordinary day of chaos to bring you to your knees, be grateful for your blessings, and drive me to the crazy! Between two crying babies and another child not cooperating, I hear the wonderful sounds of pitter patter from the fourth child walking not so gingerly upstairs. She was supposed to be getting out of pajamas and into ‘real clothes’ for the day. Then I hear it …. “Mom, there’s a fire in room. Come quick!”. “A what?!” I say with fear, anxiety, and stress as an undertone. I hear it again …”A fire!” I put one of babies down in a safe place as to not be rolled over by her twin or be bothered too much by her older sister. I run to my older daughters room not know what I am about to walk into. And in those seconds be grateful that two of my four children are able to grab whatever I tell them to grab and run out of the house on their own. As I get closer to the bedroom, I see my daughter in the bathroom down the hall from her room. She doesnt look frightened. She must be a very strong kid to not be frightened if there is a fire in a room. ‘What a strong little girl I have, she is so brave’, I think to myself. I enter her room “Where? Where is the fire?” I ask her. In the closet? Coming out from one of the outlets behind her bed or dresser that I just don’t see? Where is this fire that I now have to extinguish and possibly evacuate all my kids all the while trying to be calm for their sake. “Not a fire, Mom. A SPIDER!” “A what?!” I have to take a moment to woo-saa myself. Heart, you can go back into my chest where you below now! A spider!!! A spider I can handle no problem. A little hairspray and a little toilet paper and down the toilet he will go. (Sorry to all you spider lovers out there.) I will deal with 1000 spiders (God, I hope I never do, ewww) over a fire. I pray that never happens either, of course, but I’ll take on the spiders if I had a choice, thank you very much.

In that moment, I taught my daughters that I am not only woman enough to kill a spider but I am also SuperMom enough to refrain from absolutely loosing my mind at a thought of a fire in the house. And then the complete flip as what I heard was NOT what we said. The thought of a complete and utter WhatTheWhat moment and I still managed to somewhat keep my cool.

Let me state that in ALL moments of Motherhood I am not so controlling of my emotions and definitely do flip the handle but I will take pride in this little parenting win for the day.

Well, I did it! I bit the bullet and started a blog. It’s something I have been wanted to do for a long while and today I took the plunge. I plan to write about life, family, and the handling the stress of it all without actually loosing my mind. Who else has been in a moment when they knew they would absolute loose it, but couldn’t let yourself do it. Or in a moment when you thought that you, alone, were going through something and were unsure what path to take or if there was even a path at all. There is no rulebook. There is no guide or suggestion manual. The only way life happens is day to day… sometimes hour to hour or even minute to minute. But we DO get through it and we do make it to tomorrow. Somehow.