Fall down seven, stand up eight. As I continue to grow up (yes I’m still growing up, and newsflash – so are you) inside this crazy wild ride of life and speak to other women and peers of mine, I realize we are all in this together. And there is some comfort in the brokenness we all seem to secretly share. And, in the very put togetherness we feel the need to achieve. Yes my children are an absolute blessing. The most supreme, sublime, rewarding blessing I’ve ever received. But other than them, and a few really wonderful days peppered in to my adulthood, I’ve come to realize that this season of life is HARD. All of it, man. I honestly just started to write different things and then backspaced to write another thing and honestly i don’t know which thing is hardest or which should come first, or how to even rank at all. So excuse me if my thoughts seem a bit wonky but here goes nothin. My hands hurt because they’re so dry from this awful depressing weather. Cracking in every crease and no cream does me any justice. I have a constant headache, possibly stress? Maybe air pressure? Or perhaps from the tick I was bit by last summer? WHO KNOWS! I don’t remember my last date night. I haven’t cooked all week. My house is a wreck. My laundry is literally busting at the seems in every basket to be put away. Ok, then there’s the want to visit my friends at their houses because a change of scenery is AMAZING. Easter plans are going right around the corner. I want to lose weight. I want to travel more, sleep in, plan a family vacation, renovate the kitchen, organize my linen closet, get a pedicure/massage/facial. Ya know? But like where do I find time to do, seriously any of this??? Dan had the man flu, I’ll say NO MORE. My almost four year old had the flu recently and it was my scariest night of parenting to date. It was a fever every other night starting on a Thursday and peaking on a Sunday at 104.2. It was an instantly nauseous mommy and a daddy in actual tears over how scared we were for our first born. The fear of the unknown can do that to you. Today was the 24th of February. One entire year, and eight entire months without my mother’s presence on earth. And ya know what. It still sucks! Today was one of those days that starts out as an ordinary day and winds up punching you in the gut. Not a big hard malicious punch but more like when you’d fall off a swing and get the wind knocked out of you. And you’d lay there for a minute and try to not panic and let the quick pain weaken and then you’d stand up and go ahead and hop back on the swing.

Maybe it’s her absence and the number 24 in general that makes me feel weak. Just one day on the calendar to everyone else but the number 24 brings me great sadness. Maybe it’s the fact that I have zero relationship with my father anymore. Maybe I shouldn’t even say that here. Maybe it’s the fact that two years ago the things I complained and worried about, pale in comparison to the things that actually suck today. Think of your husband. Or your best friend. Or your child. You know when they’re sad? The kind of sad that you can feel? It sucks so bad doesn’t it? I don’t have any sugary words to make that sentence taste any better but I’m just soaking in my feelings tonight and tonight I feel sad for everyone who feels sad. It’s palpable to me. It’s truly a blessing and a curse to be able to feel all the happiness and sadness all at once. I laid in bed next to my husband tonight for about a half an hour and I could feel his energy. It matched mine and we just laid together in the silence. I drifted off into prayer like I find myself doing a lot more than I ever have before and as much as it felt safe to be inside a space of God, it also made me feel a thousand other emotions and brought me back to my most common thought place… my mom. And how much I wish I could talk to her. Cry to her. Sit with her. Make confessions to her. Like the time I lied about sneaking out, and she drove all over the neighborhood looking for me and couldn’t find me. But I was safe and wasn’t worried one bit and knew exactly what I was doing but didn’t think twice that at any point she would go into my room to check on me and to her it would seem I had vanished in the middle of the night. How fucking terrifying is it to be a parent?!!!! My God. I myself feel like I’m aging 2-7 years to every one sleepless night and to think that one day these babies of mine are gonna sneak out on me and date girls and drive me up the wall crazy is nothing short of frightening.

Ah life. They say it’s bittersweet. And I’ve gotta admit, it is!! I’m coming up on my 34th birthday and I feel it a little bit. Sometimes I wake up and my body hurts. And I think to myself ‘I am too young for my body to hurt’ and I take vitamins and drink water and eat as organically as my budget allows… GMO free, and dairy free and we are meatless 5 nights a week and even moreso during lent. I do everything Pinterest, Instagram, entertainment tonight, bachelor nation and my doctor tells me to do and I try my best to fit in some form of exercise during the week and ya know I even drink vodka instead of beer because #watchyourcarbs and fuck it’s a lot to do in one little 24 hour period. And I have to compare myself to everyone else’s highlight reel, and make light hearted and sarcastic jokes about myself and my parenting style and actually feel like sometimes I need to make an excuse as to why I don’t wash my hair more than once or twice a week when in reality we are ALLLLLLLL. Just. Tryna. Make it. And ya know what? If I don’t ever weigh under 160lbs again in my life, I’m ok with it. And if my gray hairs are popping out of the top of my forehead, I’m gonna pluck them out and move along with my day. If I feel like I want to splurge on a pair of jeans not in my goal size and the same shirt in two colors, I’m gonna do it. Because I know. Ya can’t take it with you when you go. And I know just as well as anyone that I could go…. tomorrow. I hope to God I live a long and healthy life with my favorite most beloved people by my side just as healthy and happy as can be, in fact I state these things to the universe on a daily basis. I hope I can be a positive influence on my family and my friends. I hope people look forward to seeing me. I hope people are thankful for me in their lives. Because all the people that love me, my God I love them so much. So much it gives me butterflies sometimes to think of how lucky I am to live the life I have with the people I get to do life with. Even on the hard days. Even on the absolute cold nasty wintery days. Even when I’m laying underneath the swing set with the wind knocked out of me. I have to remember that I live an abundant life. With a career I am in love with. With a husband who cherishes me in ways no other man ever has. With two little boys who think the sun rises upon my smile and sets in daddy’s kisses.

So, as per usual in my blog posts – I try to encourage everyone to see the good. And it’s usually at my highest or lowest moments in which I’m inspired to write. And it’s then that I realize sometimes through my blogging I start to cheer myself on. So here I started out on a low note because I was laying in bed late at night feeling less than happy, and though I still feel like my gas level is close to E, I truly believe a good cry and a good nights sleep can fix most of life’s complexities. I also encourage you to talk to your friends and your peers about something you may be going though because let’s be honest, we are all going through something; be it big or small, it’s all the same. So talk! And don’t just talk shit. Talk to make progress not just conversation. Get to the end of a convo and let it change your mood, or your day…. let it change your attitude.

Lastly, we decided to nix the big 4th birthday party. No cake, no balloons, no piñata. We are taking our family of four to Lake Placid to celebrate the absolute magic and wonder that is Maverick John. Like, I’m gonna grab a six pack of cupcakes at price chopper on my way out of town, and call it a day. He is only gonna be 4 for one short year, and for the little boy who asks for nothing, yet wants for nothing, we said YES to his hotel get away request. I can’t wait to share with you how it feels to give him a childhood full of yes and with this weekend getaway in March I’m hoping to create a feeling of fresh happiness, new ideas and springtime inside his little strong heart. I hope to reset mine and Dan’s minds and pour into our own cups, TOGETHER, and focus on our babies while they are still BABIES. We get one life. And in this lifetime we had one great big wish to become parents. God granted us that amazing title twice and we will be damned if we don’t show these kids what Love looks like. What love feels like. And what love can manifest. Since I can remember, every time Dan and I hug, Mav can’t run to us fast enough to get up inside our squeeze. It truly is one of my favorite parts of parenthood; showing him our love. He uses the tools he’s learning from us to love, to laugh and play with his brother, compliment his aunties, laugh with his family, and be a constant light in whoever’s life he enters. As for Acey, he is what baby dreams are made of and gives me baby fever every day, but for now Dan’s standing firm on NOMOREBABIES island and I’m just over here like, but, why not 😂.

L O L. Right? Cause we gotta laugh.

Happy almost spring my friends. We’re on our way to surviving another upstate winter and the sunshine will surely feel SO. GOOD. May you be reborn in the sunbeams and the green grass and the cute little yarn chick-a-dees at target. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about #wecantbefrendz 🤗☀️

Hey y’aaaalllllll. Been a minute. But I’m here to give my magical beautiful two cents to you on this balmy Friday in February. Sad that we think just above freezing feels like spring around here isn’t it?! So I’m home today and can’t even put the tv on because the news is just ALL TOO MUCH. It’s terrifying really. It makes me sick inside. Those poor children that were killed and all I can do really, is hold my babies tight all the time. Like…. even when we are sleeping. We’re holding onto each other. This last weekend Mav had the flu, and so did Dan, and I didn’t even have the much needed drink I was craving because I was afraid to ruin my immune system during a very trying time. As funny as the man flu jokes can be, the flu in my house for the last week was downright scary. Dan needed chest X-rays and Maverick, at 2am of course, had a fever of 104.2 degrees. It was scary and terrifying but it’s behind us now and we are healthy and thinking spring from now until she appears 🙂 my message today is a simple one. I’m always inspired by something, be it small or large, when I decide to write a blog. And this one just so happens to be one geared toward my kids. Because nobody loves my kids like I do, and it takes a village, and because once you’re a mom you’re everyone’s mom, and every other adage you can relate to raising a family. I want to encourage everyone to THINK HIGHER. Think BIGGER. Think above a situation. When a little innocent child asks for something, and I don’t mean another LEGO set, I mean when he asks you for your time, or for a special trip to New Jersey, or a certain thing for dinner – say yes. These babies are only so little for so long before we have to hand them over to this big and frightening world that isn’t it our very purpose in becoming parents to SAY YES?! We are the chosen ones, the ones God hand selected for these little humans. We have brothers and sisters and neighbors who are part of our tribe in raising these little beings. We need to show them love, and sometimes that means pouring from an empty cup just to top off theirs. To make them smile. To help them gain their independence. To let them know other adults will love them well. It means sacrificing your Saturday night out because they’re sick and you just can’t part with them. It means allowing your nieces to sleep over even if they wake up at 5am. It means bringing your nephew home at 11pm because he wanted his mommy, even though at 8 all he wanted was to stay in Mav’s bed! Its sharing clothes and toys and winter boots with family to save each other money. It’s encouraging independence while teaching them it’s ok to need your mom. That when people say no to them, you’re usually gonna say yes. Because you’re their parents. Because as much as I know my parents taught me a lot through setting healthy limits for me, I remember all the yes and the no was never said to me like that. So when raising these little kids, remember to lift them up. I read somewhere that it’s in the first three years of a child’s life where they develop emotional skills like learning how to love and be loved; when they figure out the fundamentals of who they’re going to be, like if they’ll be a leader, an empath, or a follower. They build their self esteem and self awareness in this VERY SHORT and sacred window. So if you’re not saying YES to loving and guiding them, you’re kind of saying no. Recently I was in a position where I wanted to shake a fellow parent and tell them to think higher, think bigger, think with love. But at the same time I have to remember that even though people may judge me, I’m not going to sink to that level. Even though people may offer me advice I never asked for, I’m still going to love better. Even when they try to make me feel like my bank account equals my societal status or makes me who I am, I must rise above. I know that the choices I’ve made in life and the choices I didn’t make led me to exactly where I was meant to be. Which is on my couch, with a cold cup of coffee, a baby asleep on my chest and a very tall very handsome three year old who still wants me to hold him when he’s tired. It led me to the man who supports us, loves us, and even though he is usually so strong, he can cry with me when our son has a scary fever. Truth be told, all I ever wanted to be was a mommy. A mommy to these two exact boys. These beautiful babies that God chose for me and chose me for them. I’ll do my best, and then I’ll do even better; for them. Because between me and Dan and a handful of aunts and uncles and our beloved nana and papa (and of course our guardian Gaga) we are all these little boys have. Our duty is to lead them. To love them. And to teach them exactly who they’re meant to be. I pray every night for all the babies in my life, the ones that call me mama and the ones who call me auntie. There is NOTHING more precious and fleeting than a child’s innocence so let’s try to preserve it for as loooong as we can k?! As for me, my newest challenge is that Mav asked recently to go to a hotel for his birthday and have a celebration there. It’s the last year before he’s in a classroom full of kids that he’ll want to invite to a party. So do I do it?! Do I grab a cake and a small gift and plan a 4 year old getaway for the weekend?! Dare I skip the birthday party, the piñata, the goody bags and all that jazz and give the boy what he wants?! Or do I do what society says to do and throw an over the top birthday party like I have every other year?! Stay. Tuned folks. I’m trying to think higher here and I do believe memories far outweigh another f’ing firetruck. Like by a lot.

Maverick and Ace, I love you bigger than the ocean, and higher than the sky. Being your mommy is my soul’s main purpose on this earth.