non-obligatory mother's day post

Sometimes Mother's Day can be anti-climactic.
Even upsetting and emotional.

I can remember a few Mother's Day's sitting in a pew at church hearing stories about the most amazing mother's ever and not knowing how I would or could ever measure up to that.

Add to that my preggo hormonal emotions AND the cover of Time magazine asks me this week "Are You Mom Enough" and I'm maybe at my wits end with this glorious day we celebrate mothers.

It's not a race.  It's not a challenge.  It's not a competition.  I am the right mom for each of my kids.  And my mom was the right mom for each of us girls.  The working mommy vs. stay at home mommy debate rears it's ugly head in society every couple of years and it's just infuriating.  We should be building each other up and supporting other mom's, not critiquing and feeling insufficient to some perfect mold made up in our heads.

(stepping off my soap box now)

So this mother's day has been a little different for me.  We've spent the weekend with ALL of the kids home-even Big Man on Campus who's on a mini-summer break from college.  So naturally we spent it assembling IKEA furniture and getting all of our rooms and furniture squared away for my little jelly bean to make her arrival.  And rather than compare notes or sit in a church building feeling less than I started thinking about what's the one quality MY mom has that I admire most and would like to be better at.

I've written about my mom before-I'm a big fan of hers-you can read more about her HERE

My mom is a forgiving fool.
Seriously.
She'll forgive even the most difficult of things if she loves you.

What I love about that is what it's done for us as a family.  I've known a few families that have not been able to forgive a loved ones decisions or mistakes and have severed ties or created such tension that it's difficult to live with.  I've watched other families tear each other up just to prove who's right and who's wrong creating painful riffs that last longer than they should.

In our family, family is family.  Period.  We have all made poor choices and fallen off the deep end.  Including me.  In a family of so many girls let me just say we have all pissed each other off, some of us have made life altering bad choices, others of us have judged and pointed fingers at the others (that was my specialty, truth be told), we've fought, we've fallen away from each other, we've made up, we've made messes.  But we know we're in this forever and I really think this goes back to my mom and her ability to forgive.  She taught us by example that when your sister or your loved one, or even you kid screws up it's ok to be angry.  It's ok to be disappointed.  It's ok to have a messy response and throw your own fit.  But it will never be ok to walk away and everyone gets to make a comeback.

What's odd is that I can't remember my mom ever sitting us down and explaining this or teaching us this lesson.  I've just seen it time and time again.  It's sort of amazing to me.  And she's certainly not perfect at it-I'm sure there are situations unresolved for her or things that have been painful to forgive but she does it.  Repeatedly.  Almost with reckless abandon.

I want to be more like that.
I would love to forgive more freely.
Let people have their do-overs a little more gracefully.

So that's how I choose to spend my mother's day energy today, getting ready for the baby and focusing on the part of my mom I would really like to be more like.

Feels really good.

Oh.  And mom?
Thanks for being who you are.
I sure do love you.

(And I think I just inadvertently blog named this baby in this post!  Every kid has a nickname I use here and in life...I think we'll shorten Jelly Bean to just Bean.  Yup.  That works!)

-McGee

girlfriends.

Call me crazy.
I have seven 14 year old girls in my living room for a sleepover.

And I'm loving every minute.

I was always awkward with girlfriends growing up.  I always had one or two but couldn't figure out how to really connect and the boys were more interesting to me.  (Big eye roll and sigh on THAT one)  It wasn't until I was a mom of two babies that I started to realize how important girlfriends might be.  And over the next decade, my girlfriends became my sanity and my lifeline.

So you can imagine my delight that my teenage daughters are learning that earlier than I did.  I'm hoping they will continue to hear me that high school is for finding your maid of honor, not your husband.  I hear these girls tonight make the most insanely dumb jokes and giggle over the silliest of things and my heart just swells.

It get's more and more challenging these days to connect with my girlfriends.  Spouses, boyfriends, kids, jobs, life circumstances and distance constantly get in the way of good, solid girl time.  But I know that at any given moment I can call one up and get advice, hear a silly story or vent about a bad day.

Girlfriends really do make the world go round.

Even if at age 14 they keep your mom up all night long.

-McGee

PHEW. I'm back.

What the heck was that?

Sometimes technology gets the best of me.

Took me awhile to figure it out but JustMcgee is fixed and back in action!

Look for more to come this week...I'm feeling opinionated and reflective.  Given that I'm also super pregnant that will probably not bode well for someone but life's too short!

-mcgee

don't know what you've got till it's gone.

Seriously.

My eyes burn from crying tonight.

It wasn't pretty.

You see...I was never what you would call a "dog person" but the boys in our family are, so we were graced with a puppy this year from Good Ole Saint Nick.  And then found out I was pregnant.

A boxer puppy.  And a pregnancy.
Good call, right?

Fast forward nearly four months, plenty of potty training accidents, good days and bad.

It was time to feed Bailey tonight and when Mr. Man went out to get her the back fence was wide open and Bailey was nowhere to be seen.  The horrific primal cry that let out of Little Man was horrific to experience as a mom.  It was all I could do to not come unglued.

The next hour and a half were mixed with lots of tears, many drives around the area and half hearted attempts to calm the boy and reassure him that it was possible Bailey would find her way home while I breathed deeply with big fat tears streaming down my cheeks.  In the midst of the chaos, one of my sisters hundreds of miles away placed a Craigslist missing dog notice and started calling animal shelters.  She beat Mr. Man to finding Bailey by a few minutes.   Best text of the year from my sister "She is at animal control!"

And here we are, hours later and I'm still a mess.  The thought of losing that little pesky part of family is unbearable.  Helping our kiddos get through that loss would have been heartbreaking.

So I guess it's official.
I'm not only a dog owner.
I'm a dog lover.

Through and through.

-McGee

Options.

I met a really incredible man this month.

In his 60’s, wildly successful in business, happily married for decades, father of 4 successful children.  He just looks like he won the life lottery.

My colleague asked him what makes his life so happy.

He said “Options.”

“When I realized I had options I kept going in life making the best choices I could but always looking for the options I had.  They kept getting better and better the more aware I was of what I could do with what I had around me.”

And then it hit me. 

I had been feeling so stuck.

And as if the universe heard me loud and clear…I was at a crossroads with work and facing decisions that were challenging.  Suddenly it was clear.

And then I saw the options.

They were always there; I just couldn’t see them clearly.  I had been so wrapped up in daily life and functions that I wasn’t seeing things as they were.  Now that I’m more freely looking around the list of options is growing by the day. 

And that list includes things I have always dreamed of doing!

So thanks, Dave. 

Thanks for the clarity.

Thanks for being so damn happy.

And thanks for reminding me it was always about my options!

-McGee

Collecting my people.

People come and go all the time.
Some impress me when they come.
Others when they leave!

I was reminded today that I have amazing people around me.

Four years ago I packed up my life and moved to Los Angeles, just me and the kids, knowing only Mr. Man and a cousin out here.  I left behind family, friends and a community I had spent a decade living in.  It was an exciting change but a big one for a girl who had a strong sense of belonging and a need for community.

Today I was reminded that over the past four years we have collected a new sort of family, we've found our people in unexpected places.  Spending the day with some of the most amazing, kind, supportive and fun people while supporting all of our daughters playing softball felt like I had finally found that sense of community again.  It felt like home.

It's been said that the way to a mom's heart is to love her children.  I'll add to that, love my children when you don't need to or it's not required of you and I am in your corner forever.  We have had the fortune to be loved and supported by an amazing cast of coaches, mom's, dad's and siblings.  Sitting in a group of a dozen adults today cheering on girls we have played with for the past year was exactly what I needed.  It reminded me that every time I support a kid, cheer them on or stand in their corner, it feeds them.  As a mom, it sure feeds me too.

So when in doubt...say something. 
Cheer a kid on. 
Let them know you're in their corner.

It totally matters.

Loving my community today!
-McGee

Here we go again!

I shoulda known.

I shoulda known when I was crying at the Rose Bowl Parade because it was so wonderful and beautiful.

I shoulda known when food sounded bad.  All around.

I shoulda known when I was so dang tired I could barely make it to the KIDS bedtimes!

See...we had this problem in our house.  We were going with a Brady Bunch theme, as in his and hers kids but we couldn't find ourselves an Alice for the middle square.

So we thought we would add an "ours" kid to the mix and call it good.

Baby McGee will be completing our not so little family in August of this year and we are beyond excited (and let's be honest a little nervous, I mean I AM 35 and it's been awhile since I've done the whole pregnant thing!)

As in everything I seem to do these days-here's to the journey!

-McGee