MOMtra of the Day

March 30, 2012

 

 

Nothing I’ve posted has ever been more true. Believe me dat, Poopies.

 

Happy Friday, Poopies! I hope you have had a good week. Though mine has started out quite rough and seemed to only get worse as it went on, I am happy to report that as of this very moment in time, I am doing well. For the last few hours I have actually begun to feel like myself for the first time in literally 4 weeks. Yep, 4 weeks I’ve been dealing with the virus from hell – a whole month of my life down the mono-riffic tube. BUT, as you all know, I am not one to completely wallow. Yes, I’ve thrown a couple pity parties and bitched and complained, but now that I am seeing a bit of a low glow from the light at the end of the tunnel, I am happy to report I have stumbled upon the silver lining of all this. Because ‘ole Poops here always believes you can find one if you’re open to seeing that even in our most challenging, difficult times, there is something to be learned and valued. And this brings me to today’s MOMtra, courtesy of a very wise, old sage…Virgil, one of ancient’s Rome’s most treasured and revered poets.

And this is what he so famously said:

 

THE GREATEST WEALTH IS HEALTH.

Let’s say it again in case you didn’t quite get it…THE GREATEST WEALTH IS HEALTH. Got it? One more time for those of you who might still be a bit distracted and haven’t fully let this sink in: THE GREATEST WEALTH IS HEALTH.

The great benefit of mono at 36? The grand gift the virus from hell has bestowed on me? Here it is, Poopies. It’s as simple as what Virgil said all those thousands of years ago. I will never, ever in my life take my good health for granted. Without it, happiness is hard to come by. So we’re stressed about selling our house? Big wup! So my husband has to travel often and I pull double-duty more than I’d like? So what! So my girls drive me up the wall and bicker constantly. Big effin’ deal. NONE OF IT MATTERS. NONE OF IT. HEALTH IS WEALTH. HEALTH IS EVERYTHING. Someone could show up at our door tomorrow and offer us twice what our house is worth and it wouldn’t mean a damn thing if someone in this house were seriously ill. PoopieDaddy could come home today and announce he’s done traveling forever but it wouldn’t matter at all if he also told me he was very sick. The girls could call a ceasefire and never yell at one another again and it wouldn’t be remotely important if god forbid one my precious babies weren’t well. Are you hearing what I’m saying, Poopies? HEALTH IS WEALTH.

I am just truly grateful to have been given this major wake-up call by mononucleosis and not something far more serious or scary. I always knew I would get better and except for the first week with the awful fever and aches, the main symptom has just been the relentless malaise and fatigue. But that is nothing compared to what some families out there are dealing with, nothing at all. I am fortunate. Truly fortunate and this whole experience has profoundly changed my attitude toward my health and my body and how I treat it. Major major wake-up call from Poopie’s immune system saying, hey bitch, don’t fucking test me or I’ll have to show you who’s boss. And it’s true. Pre-mono, I didn’t get enough sleep, I was way too stressed about insignificant shit, I held a lot of my feelings in that, fortunately, some good friends as of late have helped yank slowly out of me, and all in all, have generally worn myself down to the point where my body finally said enough is enough.

The worst part is not being able to have the normal amount of energy my girls are so used to seeing. Even on a few hours of sleep, I would still be dancing and singing in the car on the way to school or chasing them around the park in the afternoon. I am always giving my best to them and these past four weeks my best wasn’t available. It’s completely tapped out, the energy well has run dry. I can only imagine what moms with far more serious diagnoses feel like when their babies ask them why they can’t get out of bed and play. It breaks my heart just thinking about it. And I hope I’ll never have to experience it in my lifetime.

WEALTH IS HEALTH, Poopies. You could have all the money in the world, but without wellness, happiness is hard to come by.

So…as you enter your weekend, I hope you will think about your health. Maybe some of you are dedicated to being super healthy and practice phenomenal habits of wellness day in and day out. If so, I salute you and hope you can share those with us by posting a comment. But, if you’re anything like me and know you should sleep more, stress less, eat better, drink less and all around get your ass in a much better mode, then perhaps this MOMtra will provide you with the motivation you need to start making better healthy choices today. I think I believed that because I worked out every day and ate pretty well that I could just keep going on the way I was going. But getting mono proved me wrong. I have no doubt I wouldn’t have been susceptible to the virus and succumbed to those nasty germs if my system were in better shape. I would never wish for any of you to feel how rotten I’ve felt inside and out these past weeks, so please please heed the MOMtra and take care of yourselves! WEALTH IS HEALTH!

I love you, Poopies. Have a wonderful weekend! I wish you all so much good health and wellness! xxoo.

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Mommy Memory: Your Brain Ain’t What It Used to Be (and probably never will be again!)

March 28, 2012

Classic Poopie To Do List: DON’T EFFIN’ FORGET!

Hi Poopies! Sorry I’ve been away for so long. Being sick just stinks. I’m up and down. Then up and down again and at the end of the day, I collapse instead of blog. I know you understand and I appreciate your patience and support as ‘ole Poops here slowly makes her way back to normal.  You know it’s not because I don’t want to post to my Poops!

So yesterday I had the pleasure of finally getting out of my house and accompanied D on a playdate over at a good friend’s house. It was wonderful to be among the living and have a real conversation with an adult. At some point during our conversation, my friend and I started discussing the subject one of the articles I’d recently written for the Parenting section of Examiner.com (incidentally, my link is down below…please subscribe to my content, it only takes a sec!) Anyway, it was the article in which I gave tips for how to keep your house clutter-free and emphasized the use of keeping bins around. We were talking about various bins for a few minutes when both of our brains literally froze-up trying to remember the name of the store where I’d purchased said bins. It was, needless to say, a rather typical Mommy Moment for both of us. And we know we’re not alone!

How many times since becoming a parent has your brain failed you over the simplest thing? It’s amazing how often mine has retention problems. I will have something pictured in my head and on the tip of my tongue, but for the life of me, I can’t will my mouth to utter what the hell it is that I’m thinking! It’s crazy annoying and it happens all the time!!!! So what is this Mommy Memory problem all about? I had definitely been warned and then experienced pregnancy brain when both of my little gals were cookin’ in my belly, but I had no idea that this phenomenon would get worse and worse with each year of motherhood.  Where have our sharp, precise pre-Mommy brains gone? And will we ever get back what we lost??

Just to give you an idea, more specifically, of what I’m talking about. Here’s a list of tof the top ten greatest hings my Mommy Memory has been responsible for recently:

1. Make a thorough to-do list of errands and tasks ole ‘Poops here needs to accomplish for the day and then walk right out of the house without it and barely retain a fraction of the items from that list. hence, accomplishing very little.

2. Tell myself over and over again as I’m running into the grocery store that we only need the following items: garbage bags, milk, bananas, pull-ups and sliced turkey. Repeat this list over and over again to myself while in the store and then without fail walk right out of the market without at least 1 item, usually milk…the one I need most.

3. Forget to schedule or cancel babysitters – chronic at this one, despite having a calendar of sitter dates on my phone and hard copy in the kitchen. I’m surpised these girls haven’t formed a mutiny and rebelled, vowing to never sit for me again.

4. Stood my friend up for lunch. Literally. This Poopie knows who she is and I will forever feel bad about the fact that she called me from the restaurant asking me where I was and, embarrasingly, I had to admit that I was standing in my kitchen in a towel having just taken a leisuresly shower (a very rare luxury these days) completely oblvious to the fact that I was 20 min late for our lunch date on the other side of town. This was one of my worst, most shameful Mommy Memory offenses.

5. Forgotten to send the PoopieGirls with snack during their assigned rotation. Once a month, we provide snack for their preschool class. Again, despite a reminder calendar, I have been that mom standing in the hallway outside their classroom with my hands completely empty when the teachers asks where the day’s snack is.

6. Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays. Please. Even with all the birthday reminder technology at my disposable, I will forget your birthday. It’s a sad fact of life, Poopies. My Mommy Memory really fails me on this one.

7. Important events and dates. I have a friend whom I literally confer with regarding all my dates. I jokingly refer to her as “my social secretary.” But it’s no joke! If I didn’t run this shit by her often enough, I would forget to show up for everything. It’s pathetic. She also knows who she is and is, no doubt, laughing her ass off right now.

8.  Missed appointments. Oh, I’m really good at this one. Yep, I’ll get the reminder phone call from the dentist on my voicemail, I’ll have the little reminder card in my wallet and of course it will be on the calendar. But my Mommy Memory is a powerful force that will still enable me to skip the teeth cleaning and then have a look of utter shock and surprise on my face when I get the call from the dentist office wondering why I haven’t showed-up. If they were giving out awards for this one, Poopies, I would win first place!

9. THIS ONE IS CONSTANT: I will leave the house headed for a particular destination in mind and then before I even realize what I’m doing, I’ve completely missed the turn heading into the direction I need to be going. I did this yesterday! I needed to get on the highway heading west and literally drove right past it heading further in the wrong direction. Mommy Memory has completely usurped my brain power’s ability to navigate the car in a timely, efficient fashion. Please tell me I’m not the only space case out there who forgets where she is going sometimes!

10. Bills. Oopsie. PoopieDaddy is responsible for most of the bill-payin’ around here. But I do have a few things I’m definitely responsible for and I have to admit, I’ve had to fanagle my way out of a few late fees before when I’ve forgotten to pay my wireless bill. And of course the great irony here is that AT&T literally texts you reminders directly to your phone. Luckily, I’m very convincing and talk my way out of the fees (as PoopieDaddy says, “I could sell ice to Eskimos.”)

I never made any of these mistakes in my pre-Mommy life. So what’s the deal? Of course Poopie has theory! Ready for it? It’s actually quite simple…it boils down to this:

Our brains are already working overtime to keep up with our kids! I have to think of so many things throughout the day in order to keep them safe, healthy, fed, entertained, taught, referreed, clean, etc that there seems to be very little brainpower left over for Poopie’s thoughts. My  memory is exerting all it can to remember all the important things pertaining to the PoopieGirls’ lives and schedules and routines, that it runs out of steam when it comes to reminding me things I need to know. And it manifests in things like yesterday when my friend and I are staring at one another like morons desperately trying to remember the name of The Container Store. We could remember the intersections it’s at and we could remember the name of Bed, Bath and Beyond, but it was like pulling teeth to get our brains to finally come-up with The Container Store. Sad, but true. And it’s a rather frequent occurence.

Ok, Poops now it’s your turn to get involved in the discussion. Please, please take a few moments and post your most recent Mommy Memory Moment. We would all really love to hear it and could definitely use a good laugh to remind ourselves that we’re not alone and that we all experience these forgetful, brain-fart moments throughout motherhood. I really hope you’ll share with us! I look forward to hearing that ole’ Poops isn’t the only one driving in the wrong direction, showing up at the wrong time or not even showing up at all!!!! : )

As always, here are my social media Poopie pleas (all of my SM buttons are at the top of my full site, just click and you’re there). If you haven’t signed up to follow the blog, please do so. You won’t regret it! The Poopie Community rules! Also, please follow my Poopie Pins on Pinterest and subscribe to my zany Poopie Tweets. And of course, if you haven’t liked the Poopie FB page (just search PoopieMommy and it will show up), please take a second to do so, it would be most appreciated. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! Here’s all the crazy links y’all! xxoo.

http://Pinterest.com/mjohns1

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http://www.examiner.com/parenting-170-in-st-louis/meredith-johns

PoopieMommy on Twitter @MeredithJohns1

 

 

 

 

 

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Midnight MOMtra and Poll Results

March 24, 2012
Ok, first of all, many thanks to all of you for voicing your opinions and comments on this very relevant topic: #food battles! Clearly, this is something that most households with young children have dealt with at one time or another. If you were hoping to find the “magic bullet” solution here, I’m afraid to tell you that one simply doesn’t exist. The result of the poll as evidenced by the wonderful comments on the blog and via FB show that some of us are indeed short order cooks and bedtime snack makers. Other are more of the take it or leave it and go to bed hungry mamas. And some of us are somehwhere in between, offering up additional foods that please our little people at dinner or providing one or two consistent go-to snacks before bed. Wherever you fall on the food battle scale, the good news is this: we are all in it together! PoopieMommy strives to make you feel that not only are you not alone in dealing with these parenting issues, but we also want to acknowledge that you are doing the best you can!!! And your best, my Poopies, is good enough. So your kids don’t eat as well as you’d like? Newsflash…they are not the exception! And this I know, the food battles won’t last forever. Maybe they’re not great eaters right now, but perhaps they are great sleepers instead. #Bedtime battles are a whole different animal (we can dfeinitely address in a diff blog for sure). Maybe you are a short order cook, but your kids don’t fight all day long so you don’t have to be a referee like some of us. Or maybe they are picky eaters and bad sleepers and they fight like cats and dogs but they are loving and delicious and at the end of the day none of it really matters as long as they are happy and healthy. And, of course, all of these challenges with small children eventually pass. So…I hope you will take the time to read what your fellow Poopies have posted below and on the sidebar to the right in the comments section,  and certainly give their sound advice a try. But, please don’t ever feel like a failure if you’re struggling with this issue. It’s very typical and it won’t last forever! And your fellow Poopies are always here for you!
Also, and I apologize for the brief post this evening, the lovely mono still has me pretty exhausted and drained, but I want to leave you with a MOMtra for the weekend. A short and sweet one, but definitely worth repeating:
I pinned this on my “inspiring truths” board a few weeks ago, but its significance and depth of importance didn’t really resonate with me until I got really sick. With lots and lots of time to lie here and think these past few weeks (one of the few perks of mono) I have come to really understand the true meaning of this and have actually come to let go of some seriously long-held regrets. I hope as you read this over a few times and repeat it to yourself, you’re able to think about some of the things in your life that you might be feeling regretful about…something you said or did or didn’t do or didn’t say or didn’t’ try or tried too much…it can be anything at all that you still harbor unresolved regret over inside of you.
Once you picture what it is, take a really good look, feel it, let it run through you one last time and then kiss it goodbye. Just as the poster above says, if something good happens, then it’s wonderful. And if it’s bad, like most things we regret tend to be, think of it as experience. Change your attitude toward it. No longer see it as a regret, but as something to learn from and grow from and then to use in your arsenal of experience. Even with this damn virus from hell, I’m trying to stop regretting the time and energy lost and see this as an experience I can put toward good use in the future. No regrets. Something will come out of it no matter what. Even if it’s been a bad, awful, pain in my ass, debilitating nuisance that’s kept me from my regular life and routine, I don’t regret it. What’s the point? I got a fucked-up virus that most people get when they’re fourteen years-old. Whether I regret it or not, guess what? Still got mono! So, I must see it somehow as a valuable experience. And already I can see the benefits of thinking this way and living with no regrets: mono has given me time to start writing articles again since the only thing I can do in this damn bed besides sleep and read is bang away on this laptop! I wouldn’t have taken the time to start writing articles again if I weren’t stuck in bed all the time. Bad to get mono? Yes. But an experience nonetheless and one that I refuse to waste even more precious energy regretting.
So, my lovely Poopies, here’s hoping you can wash away some regrets of your own with the MOMtra and start viewing them as experiences to be valued. It’s a wonderful way to walk through life and I promise you won’t REGRET thinking this way!!! : )
Also, here’s my annoying social media plugs: please, please sign up to the follow the blog if you haven’t already and if you’re a tweeter, please follow me there too as PoopieMommy @MeredithJohns1. Additionally, I’m really trying to get the FB community going so please go to the PoopieMommy page and “like” me. It just takes a second and is most appreciated. And of course, I am always grateful for votes and ratings on www.topmommyblogs.com Finally, since the PoopiePoll was about food battles this week, I’ve included the link below to my Examiner article with helpful tips to get your kids to try some new, healthier foods. I’ve got a lot of awesome parenting articles coming your way, so please subscribe to my content on Examiner so you won’t miss any of them in the future!
I hope you have a phenomenal weekend, Poopie Loves! I adore each and every one of you and I am one lucky mama to have such a supportive blog community forming! PoopieMommy wouldn’t exist without all of you! xxoo.  http://www.examiner.com/parenting-in-st-louis/tips-for-getting-your-kids-to-try-healthier-foods-1
FB COMMENTS BELOW:

Lisa Slawin Acree So here it is….No battle here…they know the drill. Eat what mommy made or they can eat tomorrow. I am often so surprised at what they will eat and actually like! Although, when I am making something I know they won’t like or is too spicy, like curry, I will create a similar option for them. There are certainly fits thrown, but this is how it has always been, so Daddy and I do our best to ignore:)
Kara Fehlig SwoffordLet me know if you get the answer to this… I’m really struggling with this with my stubborn toddler :)

Tuesday at 1:05pm ·
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