Showing posts with label daughters. Show all posts

Daddy 'shopped' mommy!

Darling hubby's hobby is photography. He takes it seriously. Enough to want to compose an image to turn out just right. He'll sharpen it, saturate or desaturate it, lighten it or any other edits he 'sees' fit. He's a perfectionist.

I don't want my daughters to think that every single photo of them HAS to look perfect.
Imperfection is beautiful too. I'm okay with the REAL me in photos. Too much of anything isn't always the best option.

The other day, our eldest, Sabrina, came around his desk chair as he sat at his computer editing a photo. A photo of me. He was tinkering with a 'trial' photo editing software he'd recently signed up for. I was sitting nearby. Listening.

S: 'What are you doing, Daddy?'

DH: 'Oh just testing out some edits on this photo of Mommy.'

S: 'Why. She looks pretty in that picture.'

DH: 'Yeah, I know but come here. Take a look.'

He pulled up a before and after screen to 'show' her.

DH: 'Can you see the difference?'

S: 'Oh gosh! Mommy's skin looks HORRIBLE in the other picture!'

DH: 'Well, it's not horrible but it does 'look' better in this one.'

S: 'How did you DO that?'

DH: 'I shopped it!'

S: 'That is SO cool! Mommy, mommy, daddy shopped you!'

DH then grabs a photo magazine with a bombshell of a woman on the cover (in black and white) looking all sexy with her tousled hair and her tee shirt barely covering her thighs and explains:

DH: 'You see this woman here in this picture?'

S: 'Yes. She's BEAUTIFUL!'

DH: 'Okay, yes, do you know WHY she's looks beautiful?'

S: 'No. Why?'

DH: 'Because this entire picture was shopped or edited to make the woman look perfect and beautiful. This is NOT how people look everyday. Your mother is beautiful but she's doesn't LOOK perfect and this is NORMAL.'

S: 'Ohhh. But Daddy, Mommy's picture DOES look better without that big pimple in it.

DH: 'Yeah, you're right.'

*I think she got the gist of this lesson.

13 Promises

prom·ise │'präməs │
noun
-a declaration of assurance that one will do a particular thing or that guarantees that a particular thing will happen.

I normally don't like making promises but I find myself being coaxed into making them AND held to keeping them by my daughters.

'Pinky Promise' (photo by vjubis)

They love to make promises. They love when I 'agree' to make promises to them. They take my promises to heart. I know this because I was that SAME kid that believed the promises made to me by my mother.

In a way, I dislike promises only because they hold a deeply seared unsettling emotion for me.
But my children are NOT me and I am NOT my mother so for now, these are the promises that I CAN make to them. 13 promises to my daughters.

Dear daughters of mine,

I promise to be authentic with my emotions.
I promise that I will make a gazillion mistakes.
I promise to listen intently to your struggles.
I promise to be raw and display my struggles to you because I am NOT perfect.
I promise to do my best.
I promise to turn to your sweet smiles when I'm feeling down.
I promise to allow you to be who you are.
I promise to love you to your deepest core.
I promise to be compassionate toward myself.
I promise to forgive you.
I promise that you'll get mad at me at times.
I promise to allow you to make mistakes.
I promise to always be your friend.

Birthday suit: My daughter's body image

My eldest turned eight years old! Happy Birthday to my sweet girl! Sabrina is the bright ray of sunlight that made me a mother and enveloped me in her noble and compassionate love ♥ 01.08.12 I love you baby girl!

We had a fabulous birthday celebration for Sabrina (I'll post a separate one of the party). We started the special weekend on Saturday and it went on into Sunday (the actual day).

We had another picnic by the shore. She simply loves being this close to nature. We invited some close friends to come along, my dear friend and her two boys.

Sabrina confessed to us recently that she has a 'crush' on my friend's older son, Maximo. We also later found out that, well, Maximo has a 'crush' on Sabrina as well. You can imagine all the 'puppy love' happening when they get together. A very subtle and pal-like 'crush' is what they display.

Sabrina was all excited about the fact that I'd let her wear her bathing suit this time for her to play IN the water. Unlike the last time.

Earlier that day, Sabrina confided in her father with a dilemma she was facing.

*As interpreted by my 'darling husband'

S: "Daddy, I need to tell you something."

DH: "Okay, sure, tell me."

S: "I kind of think that I shouldn't wear my bathing suit to the picnic today."

DH: "Why, honey?"

S: "Because I don't want Maximo to see me in it."

DH: "Oh, no, don't be silly. Why?"

S: "Daddy, because I have a NICE body and I don't want Maximo to like me for my body."

*DH was trying to keep himself from bursting into laughter at this point*

DH: "Sabrina, I don't think he's going to look at you in THAT way. You have nothing to worry about."

S: "Really, Daddy? Okay, then I'll wear it."

When DH approached me about this dilemma, I was expecting quite the opposite reaction from Sabrina because had that been an 8 year old ME, I would have totally had a HUGE complex about my body. Because I DID when I was her age. I was self-conscious, shy, worried and simply hated the idea of even putting a bathing suit on.

Me. Age 11-It took me 3 scoops of courage to step out and get photographed here.

My body image complexes continued on into my early twenties. I was obsessed with 'looking' skinny and wearing a tiny clothing size and simply had no interest in accepting my body as it was. I hadn't realized that my body was indeed perfect in every way because I lived in it.

Me. Age 11. I didn't love my body.

My daughter has arrived at a place that took me much longer to realize. She loves her body. She accepts herself as she IS. She's aware that her body has power and beauty. She 'knows' that her opposite sex will possibly 'see' these things in her as well. I'm happy that she's aware of this fact. She's not shy and doesn't put herself down. My Sabrina simply enjoys the fact that she loves her body. Period. I. love. this.

I could have definitely learned a thing or two from my daughter when I was younger. She's taught me so much in eight years. The best lesson has been to allow myself to BE who I AM no matter what. She IS this. She LIVES it and SHARES it with the world.

Sabrina enjoyed her picnic.

She played in the water.

She wore her bathing suit.

Most of all, she loved herself in her suit and the fact that she didn't mind Maximo seeing her in it as well.

Sabrina tossing a rock in her suit. Maximo is the one picking one up and his brother, Joaquin is considering another rock to throw. Simple fun at a picnic by the shore.

Confidence is looking at you...

Confessions of an evil sister or why age difference is irrelevant

I have a younger sister. Two, actually but I’m speaking of the one born after me. She and I are six years, two months and 1 day apart.

The first thing I thought of her when she was born was, ‘Her head is bigger than mine!’ and that she looked Asian (not that Asian babies aren’t adorable.) As we grew up and she became increasingly annoying, I found myself committing some really evil pranks on her, you know, just to mess with her.

I was mean. No. Like. Really. Really. Mean. I used to revel in watching her get grossed out and vomit after I'd run my saliva filled index finger under her nose. Once it dried, that’s all she’d smell. Nasty old saliva and I’d practically piss in my pants from the laughter. I was seven and she was two. Awful!

Another time I asked her to let me see her cavities and quickly took her open mouth opportunity to ‘hauck a loogie’ right into it. She threw up. The grossest thing I’ve ever done. Seriously.

When she was six, I told her that the ‘Bride of Chucky’ would be visiting her at night because she liked her shoes. The look on her face was f**cking priceless!

I’d say the ‘meanest’ moment was when I coaxed her into letting me cut her hair in to layers with my school scissors. I wanted to practice artistry with her hair. I DID promise to give her any one of my ‘New Kids on the Block’ wall poster’s (yes, I was one of those silly 13 year old girls squealing over Donnie.) My hair cutting skills needed major improvement and then I changed my mind about giving her that poster after all. She wore a hat to school the next day to cover up my 'artistry.' Awful!

I guess I really enjoyed the fact that I was six years two months and one day older than her. My mom never knew about most of the pranks because even if she went to ‘tattletale’, I’d always come back with, “She’s lying, mom!” Terrible, terrible me.

My three sweet daughters are all relatively close in age. The first two are twenty months apart and the last two are almost three years apart. I figured that the closer they were in age, the less they’d harass one another. Puh-leeze! I was SO wrong! Age is totally irrelevant here. They taunt and tease each other just the same. So. Annoying. Ugh.

I’m REALLY hoping that my daughters don’t get ridiculously creative with pranks against one another like I did to my poor little sister. My sister and I STILL talk about the crap I did to her.

No, I’m not proud of my ‘evil’ sister pranks but they definitely bring on a great chuckle every now and again. I hope that my ‘slightly evil’ side didn’t get transmitted to my daughters while in utero. In any event, my daughters have some pretty large ‘evil’ shoes to fill!

I love my sister. Always have and always will…

My sister and me, circa 2000 ♥

Will my children have great interpersonal skills?

Image

iPad, iPhone, SmartPhone, Kindle, Kindle Fire, etc...I know, I know, the list can go on.

Goodness, my children live in a saturated world of technology and gadgets and well, 140 character statements. They will NEVER know a time when technology wasn't an enormous part of their lives. Period.

The best thing that I can do NOW is cultivate and nurture excellent communication skills in them with people face to face and NOT simply over clicking 'send' because it seems to me that interpersonal skills are almost extinct today. It's a bit scary!

But these are the times we live in. I get it. The perils of technology and children. The fact that my daughters are growing up watching my husband and I constantly 'connected' and 'plugged in' to the whole gamut of social media makes me worry for them.

I worry that they will not have the ability to connect with people on a face to face level when Facebook and Twitter are the ways that even I AM connecting with people lately. I worry that they'll be 'socially' limited. I worry that they'll totally suck at communicating on a human level when they're adults. I worry that instead of resolving an issue with someone, in the flesh, that they'll simply revert to an e-mail or a text message or worse a Facebook status update. I worry that they'll be fantastic at the whole social media do's and don't's but NOT the real LIFE social do's and don't's, i.e., DO send a hand written thank you card & DON'T show up at someone's house unannounced. Do you know what I mean?

I worry.

But within all the 'worrying' I do, here is a list of what I AM cultivating and nurturing in them. For goodness sake, I can only hope that they'll have great (or at the very least, acceptable) interpersonal/communication skills.

Allow them to tell me how they feel when they feel it to my face BUT respectfully. If I respect them, they will only emulate the same behavior.
Write 'thank you' notes each time they receive a gift or are given a thoughtful gesture. Although this is not necessarily an 'interpersonal' skill, it does require 'personal' handling. It's time consuming, YES, but the rewards are endless. I'd like to know that I'm raising 'appreciative' little individuals.
Allow them to 'see' my husband and I in disagreement or pouty looking moments AND also see the RESOLUTION to our tiff, disagreement or pouty moment. What's the point of the frowns if they can't see toothy smiles and hugs and kisses later?
No matter what a situation brings forth, it is extremely important that they a) apologize & b) do it AUTHENTICALLY. None of that half assed passive aggressive garbage I often encounter! If you don't mean it then don't say it. Go cool your head off and then come back and be genuine, dammit!
Make sure that no matter what career path they choose, they NEED to be well versed, well read and well on their way to dealing with any type of person that 'strolls' down their path OR 'trolls' on their blog post, tweet, Facebook status update or Klout score. I will raise internet & social media savvy daughters. Period.

Proud to have this posted syndicated on BlogHer!

Little moments of mothering...

I found these old pictures and was filled with so much joy that I needed to share them here with you. Taken by my wonderful husband back in December 2006, they are little but sweet moments with my two babies when they were just that, babies (to me, at least.)

{Little moments of mothering love...}

{My Sabrina 2 years and 11 months)

{Mothering brings me courage}

{Mothering brings me laughter}

{My Luna 15 months old}

{Mothering allows me to savor the mundane}

{Mothering allows me to revel in wonder}

{Mothering has taught me to mother myself as much as I do my children}

Mamas get depressed but love shines

September 2005 (Sabrina was 20 months old and Luna was 3 days old).

The look of postpartum depression here...

In early 2007 I was feeling very depressed. I had been struggling to keep myself 'together' from the time that my second daughter was born back in 2005. It was hard. The biggest challenge for me was having the right support. I thank my mother in law, Magda, for being the one enormous help (aside from my amazing husband) to me during the first weeks of Luna's life. I remember the feeling of being suffocated by my own emotions and struggles and inner conflicts.

I wrote this (below) to myself one afternoon. I remember sitting at my desk top while my two babies napped in their room. I opened up to myself. I needed to feel better and wanted to feel validated inside. This is what came of it.

My personal thoughts about myself…

March 22, 2007

'I feel compelled to share this personal view and intimate experience of myself as a mother.

I am a mother whom tries her hardest to do the very best for my children but there are also many occasions that I drop the ball and experience moments that I would I like to hide away from. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend and would not want anything more than to be able to peel the layers of embarrassment, shame and judgment off of myself when I feel that I have let myself down or more so, my children.

I have highs and lows, happy moments and sad moments, calm moments and angry moments, I am real, and I am a woman. I was a woman before I became married, I was a woman before I bore my amazing children and I will continue to be a woman. I try to take in deep breaths and attempt to regain my center within the deepest parts of my core when I feel that I have drifted off. Women are powerful beings. Sometimes I feel that my power is lost...

I want to be the very best mother to my daughters but I know that there is no such thing as perfect. I become angry with myself when I catch a glimpse of the mean mommy who yells at her daughters to get them to cooperate, or ignores their cries to get my attention, or constantly says “just one more minute” when I really mean thirty minutes.

I beat myself up inside when I cannot be compassionate about the little girl inside of 'me' that wanted her mommy’s attention. Therefore I expect myself to be a wonder mom to my daughters. I need to care for my 'self' on the inside to be happy on the outside and this is difficult. Motherhood is a journey to take a look at yourself in ways you never dreamed you would or could. It scares me.

I am grateful to be blessed with motherhood. I carry a pain that sits with me even when I don’t want it around and mothering my daughters forces me to look it straight in the eye and be with it, acknowledge it, and let it go. Everyday I am given a choice, either to live for tomorrow or live in the now. I try to live in the now and by doing this I simply enjoy the act of my daughter Sabrina caressing my hair with her gentle touch or feeling Luna’s warm breath on my breast while she nurses and sweetly looks up at me. These small moments lower me back to the ground when I have drifted off and remind me that I am alive. I am a person with a beating heart and my wounds do not define me. I am not perfect and I am not a wonder mom but I am a woman and a mother and I do the best that I can and I am okay with that.'

When I read this I'm siphoned back to that very moment of fear and angst and pain and love that motherhood has brought me. I am reminded to be kind to myself. I am reminded to love myself even more. I am reminded to be compassionate, empathetic, grateful and aware of my mothering self. I am reminded that no matter how daunting a moment can feel like, it will be okay. Motherhood is not a straight, clear and narrow road. There are many winding roads, rocks along the way, potholes, debris and stormy weather to overcome. Motherhood is an opportunity for me to feel through my ever winding emotions and immense love for my daughters.

Motherhood has given me the gift to heal, to become compassionate and to love the soul that resides in this skin even when there are uneasy moments.

My sweet baby girls and me on Mother's Day in 2006

Regret is still beautiful...

re·gret |ri'gret| {verb}:
feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over
(something that has happened or been done,
esp a loss or missed opportunity)

I looked into the eyes of regret at a very young age. Regret rested in the eyes of my mother. She held all the moments of her life that she wished she could have, in half a second, returned to and done something completely different about it. At that very young age I would learn of my mother's one enormous regret. I remember asking her why she was always so sad.

'Mommy, why are you crying?' A 5 year old me would ask her.

'Mommy is just missing a big part of her.' She'd respond. I never understood exactly what she was talking about.

I'd watch her eyes well up and her lower lip quiver with heavy emotion over something I had no clue about. I didn't know it then but I was witnessing her regret swim about her heart and encapsulate her entire being. Her exquisite face eclipsed by her regret. I don't believe that any child enjoys seeing their mother cry. I wanted to understand her. I wanted to make her happy. I wanted her to smile but it was nearly impossible to attain such a reaction from her no matter how gently I'd try. Her eyes were always sad... But she was still beautiful to me, tears and regret and all.

My mom and I circa 1981

My mother would share with me that she had lost two pieces of her heart before I was born. Her first two daughters. My sisters. I still didn't understand. I wanted to understand but how does a 5 year old try to understand something this enormous?

'You have two sisters, Vanessa. My two babies before you.' She'd say one day as she was kneeling down to my 3 1/2 foot level, wisps of her dark curly hair sticking to her fresh tears and rosy cheek, her mascara running like black thin streams.

'But where are they?' I'd ask her. Confused. Dumbfounded. Sad too!

(As I write this, tears streaming down my face

for the regret and sadness I felt on that day along with my mother.

Her regret and her sadness transmitted to a five year old me.)

'One day you'll meet them. I promise.' She'd say crying while wrapping her arms around my thin torso and pressing me firmly into her breasts. The scent of her hair still familiar to me today.

I believe that it was that day I learned what empathy was. I believe that I experienced empathy in the rawest form and in the rawest moment of my mother's life. I believe that there was nothing I could have done to ease her regret or her pain or her sadness or her broken heart. I was simply there. I was simply standing in the shadow of two lost daughters. I was simply her little girl that wanted to understand her and hold her and love her no matter how much she was aching and regretting her loss. I was simply a catalyst to her broken heart.

As the child that witnessed this heartache so raw and so painfully close, I can only say that the one part of it that never escaped me was the overwhelming beauty I saw in my mother. Her beauty that radiated in streaks and specs of glowing light. Her regret, so heavy and so sad allowing me the window to peer into and walk beside her deepest emotion and my experiencing great empathy and oneness with her at the age of five. Oddly enough, there was a peculiar beauty to her regret.

Sometime in 1976 my mother abandoned her first two daughters from her first marriage. It was a typical case of a scared young woman (20 years old) that was threatened by her husband and her desire to flee from her life into the arms of another man (my father). There were more complicated issues but they're too long to mention here. My mother's plan was not well thought out and she basically created her own destiny the moment she walked out on her little girls (ages 4 and 2.) In the eyes of the law and several other clever legal individuals and an angry ex-husband, my mother lost legal custody of them both, as well as the right to ever see them again (until they each turned 18) and soon after the custody battle, they were adopted by her ex-husband's cousins. I was born in 1977.

Today I dedicate this post to my mother. Mom, I have been burdened with the enormous effect that your emotions have had on me since I was so very young. I believe that it was a gift of some kind. A gift, that even with its heavy and dark sorrows, has allowed me the ability to feel deep empathy and compassion toward you. It's allowed me to hold a space for you, for my sisters and for the love that you've always tried to attain within yourself. I see you. I see your pain. I see your heart. And I will always see just how beautiful regret still is... I love you...

Because it heals me...

Tonight, while I changed the sheets on my daughters' bunk beds I couldn't help but remember moments of my turbulent childhood.

I was mindful of how I tucked the fitted sheets on their mattresses because while I did so, I vicariously tended to the bed I would have slept in as a little girl and added the attention I needed...

It healed me.

I was mindful when I spread out the wrinkles on their flat sheets so that they may sleep comfortably because my childhood sheets were often tangled up from my having to wrap myself up so tightly like a burrito to secure the safety of my little body...

It healed me.

I was mindful in making sure that their little pink glowing night light was plugged in and working properly so that they may not fear any 'imaginary' shadows even though the one 'real' shadow that lurked in my childhood bedroom was not scared away by pink night lights...

It healed me.

I was mindful in adorning their beds with their favorite stuffed animals and decorative pillows I sewed for them because my childhood bed was absent of dolls or anything dedicated to me by my mother...

It healed me.

I was mindful in re-taping the pictures they had put up on their walls of their daddy and I and others of themselves with their sisters because my childhood room never reflected any images of a memorable moment captured by the click of a shutter...

It healed me.

I was mindful in reminding myself that this life I chose, this life I've created, this life I am living and these daughters I am raising and loving and proud to call myself their Mama IS what heals me.

They heal my sorrow. They heal my pain. They heal the neglect. They heal the absence. They heal my fear. They heal my heart and soul and mere existence.

I partake in all the mundane, all the wondrous, all the exciting and draining and joy and love and disappointment and anger and beauty and sadness and all the other things in between mothering my three incredibly inspiring daughters...

Because THEY heal me...

**I'm proud to announce that this post is syndicated on BlogHer**

{cupcakes} by little hands

~~I wear many hats~~. I believe most parents wear many hats. I'm a wife, mother, writer, worrier, baker, thinker, creator, sewer (as in needle & thread), crafter, sister, friend, daughter, diplomat, niece, granddaughter, skeptic, poet...I can go on but I don't want to tire you. Eh, didn't think so.

On most days I feel like the mad hatter with a collection of topsy turvy hats propped on my head that are about to topple over at any given moment. I have a love for many things but sometimes I simply need to watch my children enjoy something I love to do.

Without further ado...

A sneak peek at my three little lovely ladies using their little hands to decorate their own little cupcakes.