My Name is MOM and I Can't Say No. This is my story.

I was reading the start of a book by an amazing author, Lysa TerKeurst, today. My brain started whirling when I decided to comment on the beginnings of what is going to be a great book. The topic? Women and the issue of saying Yes and No. We all know this story very well. It is our story and we deal with it everyday. It doesn't matter whether you are a mom working out of the home, or a mom working from home. It doesn't even matter if you are a mom, or a young woman just starting out in life. We all deal with this particular juggle and can relate AT ANY AGE and AT ANY PLACE in our lives. Here is my take on it:

You know the type. Cheerleader. Looks immaculate in her cute cheerleading outfit, is an honor roll student and has tons of friends. Or how about this? She somehow manages to wear a sleek suit and high heels, has no hair out of place and is quite comfortable running a boardroom meeting full of men in suits. Or, how about this one? She is perfectly comfortable with a kid hanging off her leg as she makes dinner, does homework with the older child, talks the teenager through a teenage crisis, her house is immaculate and she looks like she just stepped out of a magazine. In jeans and a t-shirt. Oh, and she makes these cute little cut-out treats for each holiday and sends them with her kids to class while somehow managing to volunteer for every function at school. And both of these women's kids look like angels in church.

Ugh. Sound familiar? Sound like someone you are trying to emulate? Yep. I can relate. I am totally ok letting you know that I have a problem. You may have guessed it. I CAN'T say no. Well, at least I am not very good at it. See, I grew up with a super mom. She worked, put my dad through pharmacy school and ran a family. Oh, she went to school again herself, was more or less a single parent when my dad traveled and was soccer mom. She entertained for my dad's co-workers, took my sister and I to church and sent us to religious ed AND had a clean house. Was it always calm and happy? Is life ever always calm and happy? And my grandma? You guessed it. She was a nurse, more or less a single parent as my grandpa traveled AND she had 4 boys and a girl. And a clean house. Grandma was also a super mom and is super grandma. They made it look good and they did it just like the women before them.

You see, this story isn't just my story. It is the story of womanhood. And it goes back a long time. It is imprinted on us..it is a learned experience.We either are surrounded by women in our lives, growing up, who take on too much, do too little, or somehow manage to balance it all and maintain a sense of calm. Somehow, we know that we will embody the best qualities of the women who influence us, but do some things a little bit different.

I turned 37 yesterday. I'd like to say that I've learned who I am, that I am wiser. And in many ways I am. I've experienced a lot in the first half of this life, and I've grown as a person, mostly as a mom. Have I embodied the best qualities of the women in my life? I'd like to think so. I hope so. But I still have this problem of knowing when to say yes and when to say no. For example, I have three girls. And I am sure if you ask them about their mom, they would tell you something about how I love to clean and do laundry, love to take them to Irish Dance and swim team, love to take them to piano and learn it with them, love to make dinner, do their homework with them, write a blog and in my spare time, love to substitute teach. :) Yep, classic. I, in fact, only sit still while I am in the car driving them to and from their events. And maybe when I fall into bed, where I lay there thinking about my commitments to the next day and evaluating myself before God, letting him take stock in what I did or didn't do that day.

This story of women, actually began with Eve. Eve said yes to the forbidden fruit and changed us forever. She had a lot of outside influences weighing on her choice and it wasn't good. Who knows what else influenced the yes...was she trying to make dinner for Adam, take care of the animals that were left in their charge and evaluate herself before God? Probably. She may have been the first woman that said yes to something because she had a million other things going on and making a decision made it one less thing on her plate to do, but she won't be the last. With this decision to say yes to a desire, humanity fell and changed. And we all deal with this repercussion. We as women are called every day to evaluate our "yes" and our "no." Are we saying yes or no based upon what is good for us, what serves others, or what makes us happy, makes us feel good, makes us fit in or look good to others? Is our decision a snap yes or no, so that we can get on to the next thing we face? Or is it well thought out, prayed about and impacts us and others in a positive way?

And then there is THE MOST important yes that changed our lives in a positive way forever. This yes was from Mary. And it was a big one. And it wasn't a yes that she just threw out there in order to get something off her to-do list. And, she was a young woman, clearly very mature for her age. Her yes to God changed everything. And she said yes to the unkown, risking it all. BUT, when she said yes, she asked God to be with her on her journey. She not only wrote the history that only God had predicted, she laid the ground-work for women to come, leaving us with many examples of what a woman should be. She gave us an example of a yes that was positive, that would impact everyone and that God called her to say yes to.

Therein lies the...dare I say...secret? I believe that we need to determine the importance of our yes or no based upon how it will impact us as women and our family and then we need to let go of the guilt and fear and make our YES loud and clear and ask God to be a part of it. And, for most of us women, we don't learn this until we do a little bit of "growing up," and knowing who we are as women and what we want from our lives. Which doesn't happen overnight. It's a continued process. So of course, I will probably take on more than I can handle again at somepoint...maybe even tonight. :)

But, I have many women in my life that are good examples. Mary is one of them. My mom and my grandma are the next most important. My sister, who is younger and wiser in many ways is another. I am lucky to have many amazing aunts, and, I have many girlfriends that I am blessed to call my sisters. May you all have the time to say yes or no based upon a prayerful decision. And may you feel good about your decison, no matter what the outcome is. Because only God knows what He has called you to do. And no matter where you are right now in this moment, you are where you are supposed to be.

Bugs, Scissors and Clorox..oh my!

So this weekend's soundtrack would be joyful, rambunctious and of course, messy. I drove a carload of happy, energetic tweenagers to swim team...so my first song in the soundtrack is dedicated to them. They had me play it at least 6 times on our long drive to Creek High School. They laughed, teased each other and in general, had a great time and made me feel young again.

Then, I woke up at o'dark 30 on Saturday morning to get everyone into their Irish dance wigs, dresses, tiaras, shoes...oh wait. The youngest is missing her gillies. Super. How do you dance without your dance shoes, in your first Feis? With an awesome dance teacher that happens to have exactly the size you need, of course! Then, as an added bonus to my already insane morning...one of the kiddos comes to me complaining of her head itching and hurting. My first thought is, sorry, get dressed we have to go! Then I look. NIGHTMARE. Lice. Not a bad case, for of course in college during nursing clinicals, I had the joy of seeing the real deal. This was not one of those cases. BUT. IT. WAS. MY. KID's HEAD!

I like to think that I have an extremely clean house...my mom is an infection control nurse for God's sake. My friends who know me best know that I am slighlty compulsive with Clorox and Purell. So my soundtrack is now fluctuating between exhaustion and insanity. As I am trying to get three kids out the door to a Feis. So, said child will have to stay home and dad will have to deal. Thank heaven for dad! I leave, already 30 minutes late.

The Feis turned out amazing, thanks to wonderful friends who met me at the DOOR to help me get my kids finished dressing while I checked in for registration. We even had great friends come watch the girls dance and got me a cup of coffee. You all know who you are and I love you!

The rest of the weekend is me in rubber gloves, running...again...between applying Nix shampoo to all three daughter's heads (just to be safe) and the laundry room....had to throw out pillows, wash everything in site and scrub, scrub, scrub. AUGH! Sunday arrives, as husband is getting ready to leave for a week out of town, and I can't even comb through said daughter's hair. No salon will cut her hair, of course, so thank GOD for YouTube! I set up a salon chair, don the scissors and spray bottle and start cutting. 6 inches of dark brown hair all over my bathroom floor and viola! She loves her cute haircut and everyone is happy. For now.

My weekend's soundtrack fluctuated between drama and straight out pandamonium. Maybe this means my week will be slow. Right. :)

This Weekend's Playlist:

RadioActive - Imagine Dragons
The Antidote - St. Vincent
Done All Wrong - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Friends - Band of Skulls
Let it Go - Blue October

The Premiere

So I've always wanted to write, but life is too hectic to sit and write an organized book and my random one liners on Facebook aren't quite giving me the expression. So I've started a blog. Cliche? Overdone? Probably. But it's going to be my creative contribution for now, so read it or don't, judge nicely. You know who you are. And I am okay with that, I am not in high school anymore.

Have you ever considered what the soundtrack to your life would be? I have. I do. I could have a soundtrack for every day, maybe even hourly. I will even put a playlist at the end of every blog. This is where this blog's title surfaced. I am a SAHM (Stay at Home Mom), raising three determined, head-strong, brilliant, spiritual, busy girls. Daily, I rejoice in my vocation as much as I debate. What am I doing? Isn't there more to this life than running? Running is also my hobby...I live to run. Literally, I run between 1-3 miles a day, but I also vacillate between running to drop the girls to and from school, running errands, running through the house to pick up trails of toys and laundry and running the girls to and from their sports. Running to get them through dinner, homework and finally, to bed. So by the time my head hits my pillow, I think, should I be doing something greater? And my head plays back through my daily soundtrack...you guessed it, still running.

The chaos part? Did you miss the part about raising three GIRLS? Maybe drama would be a better word. It's a beautiful messy chaos, and I wouldn't love doing anything more. My days are filled with finding joyful abandon in each adventure...trying to stay on top of the latest tweenage revelations, keeping up with my precocious and independent 6 year-old and bringing out the spirit in my quiet middle child. So in between running with them, looking for the nearest Starbucks drive-thru and trying to remind myself of who I am in the middle of it all, my soundtrack continues.

Hope you find as much adventure reading about my life as I hope to find in writing about it. Stay tuned...the music is sweet, intense, raging and soul-filled. Hope you start thinking about the tunes that keep your day beating.

Today's Playlist

Clair de Lune
Cover Your Tracks - A Boy and His Kite
SkyFall - Adele
Part of Me - Katy Perry
Follow Me - Muse
Solar Midnite - Lupe Fiasco
This is the Stuff - Francesca Battistelli
Blue Does - Blue October
Show Stopper - Toby Mac
Hey Devil - Toby Mac