When you become a mom, it seems like you are not allowed to get sick, hurt, or even have a headache.  I recently had a chiropractor tell me not to lift or move my left arm much because I messed up some tendons and some other things in it.  I looked at him, smiled, and told him that I will try my best but there are no guarantees.  After all, I do have a two year old!

No matter what, when you are a mom, you still have responsibilities to take care of.  It doesn't matter if you are so sick that you can barely walk, your kids need to get to school, your man has to work, and you have to just suck it up and deal with it.  You do what you must to keep the house going.  The only thing you don't do is all the extra house cleaning and things that can wait until later.  Now if your man is really nice, he will try to cook you some dinner and tell the kids to not bug you.  Then he will help with the homework, the showers, and all of that.  I feel though that things just don't get done the same and things always seem to be forgotten about.

I do have a trick up my sleeve for not getting sick though.  During cold and flu season, when I see that my kids are sick and I haven't showed any signs of it, yet, I take prenatal vitamins, and that seems to work.  All that extra stuff seems to really help with keeping me healthy, or at the very least, not as bad off as everyone else.

Being injured is different though.  When you are told not to use whatever body part you have hurt, there is nothing anyone can do.  You have all good intention to favor it and take care of it, but there is no way not to use it.  It's just impossible.  Not to use the arm that I hold my son in?  That I lift up his legs to change his butt with?  Use when I am cooking dinner?  Laying him down in bed?  I am trying to do it, but I can tell you now, it's going to be the longest week of my life!

I think when you become a parent, you should become indestructible.  With the way mistakes happen, may they be accidents, or otherwise, in my house, it always seems like it's the mom that gets hurt over the little and sometimes the stupidest things!

When I became a mother, I learned what true, unconditional love really was.  I have lost all focus on myself, and turned it toward my children.  I see other parents that care very little for their children, and they also don't listen to one another.  I never want to be like that.  Even though I run a "tight ship" so to speak, my children know that they can come to me for anything and I will be there to listen.  More importantly, I can also tell by their mood, when you need to ask them if something is wrong.  More often then not, a flood of words come out along with tears and they need a shoulder to cry on.  They aren't looking for advice, or someone to judge them, they are just looking for comfort and someone to listen. 
I try to have the children be involved in the house as a family.  We sit down at the dinner table to do homework, we do chores, we eat meals at them table without the TV blaring, and we go and do things as a family.  I want to be involved in their life, to help them when they need it, but more importantly, to just be there for them.
I don't know the future or how they will turn out in the end, they will make their own choices, but I do hope that with the way I raised them they will be good ones.  I am just so blessed to have these children and I hope that one day they, themselves will understand the joy of it all.

I have this blog, and typing in here helps me quite a bit, but there are also times that I just need to vent.  I think we all have been there, and we vent in different ways.  For me, I keep a journal.  I use to write it down, but then the kids get into the paper and either read it or use up the notebook with whatever they need it for.  So now I do it all on the computer.

Typing in my journal saves my sanity.  In there, I can say what I really want to say.  I don't need to worry about others reading it and getting offended.  It's something about seeing my feeling put into words and then being able to reread it when I need to, that makes me relax.  I tend to dwell on the things that I can't change and typing it all out just puts my mind to rest.  Talking to friends and venting to them is nice, but it doesn't have the same soothing effect on me that typing does.  These past couple of days have been a bit stressful for me, but thanks to my journal, it made it easier to deal with it all.

Why do I dwell?  I do it mostly to try to figure out the problem, or at the very least the reason behind the problem to begin with.  If it's money, I dwell on how to fix it, if it's the house, well then I dwell on what I can do to repair it.  There are many things and people that I tend to dwell on and it seems that after a while, they get all tangled up inside my brain and then the stress comes.  To me, everything is like a problem that needs to be figured out.  When I can stop dwelling on something, then the answer usually comes to me.

So if you are like me and just need to get things off your chest, then I would recommend a journal.  It's better than any Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.  You don't have to listen to other people that got offended and yet you still feel like you vented, but you did so without stepping on toes.
 

Recently I have come to think about what friendship means to me.  I think people tend to take that word a little too loosely.  It's not the other parent on the same team as your child, nor is it someone that you work with on an everyday basis.  I know that everyone has their own ideas of what a friend is, and how they are your friend, but what I have come to realize is that it's not the quantity but the quality that matters the most in the end.
I have a few things that I try to look for in a friend.  I think they are pretty good traits and I hope that one day my kids will understand why I look for those traits in others when choosing my friends.

1. Open minded.  I am open to all new ideas, thoughts, actions.  I know that there is a difference of hearing the idea that sounds a little impracticable and doing it.  I think I just like friends that can at least discuss things without the fear that they (or I) might offend the other person.
2. Intelligent.  Now I am not saying that they have to be a PhD in anything, but I think someone with a bit more common sense than normal seems to work well. 
3. Nice.  Not Mr.Rogers kind of nice (that is just creepy).  I am talking about how you treat others that aren't your friends, colleges, or what ever you consider your equals.  I am talking about what others refer to as "the little people".  I don't care if the pizza guy took over two hours to get there.  Be nice, that person may be having a worse day than you are.
4. Follows through.  There is nothing worse than a friend that you make plans with and doesn't follow through with them.  I understand when things don't work out occasionally and you can't be there, but when they do it 3 out of 4 times, it shows they don't really care.  Even bigger on that list is when they know sometimes weeks in advance they can't do it and they don't tell you about it until you call them. 
5. Honesty.  I know most people are honest up to an extent, but I am talking about a whole new level of it.  You think something I said was stupid, tell me flat out.  I don't want to hear it from someone else that you think that.  I would then discuss it with you like an adult and see if I was actually saying something stupid, or if it was just a miss communication.  

There are also things that will turn me away from being your friend as well.  I don't know about other people but I call them some of my pet peeves.  Don't get me wrong, I do try to turn the other cheek and not worry about it, but sometimes even that doesn't work.  It happens mostly when someone does these things on a very regular basis and drives me nuts with them.  If you are a really good friend, I will just let you know what it is that you are doing.

1. Whining.  May that be about your past, present, or future.  I understand when someone needs to complain about something, but don't whine about it and not try to fix it.  Also own up to what you have done (or has been done to you) in the past and don't whine about it.  You can't change it so don't worry about it.  
2. Rudeness.  Don't be rude and show up 2 hours late when you say you are going to be there without so much as a phone call.  Don't be rude to others unless they started it and you needed to end it.  Also don't ask me to come over then have me "help" you with something.  If you need help, call and ask me to help.  I am more than willing to help when I am not being "buttered" up.  It's just rude.
3. Lack of acceptance.  It just kills me when I try to accept the things as they come.  If a friend has to cancel on me, I accept it and we go from there.  I expect the same thing.  I don't want a guilt trip if I have to cancel plans.  I feel bad enough as it is and the guilt trips and trying to bully me into doing something doesn't help your cause any.  Also when you act like that, it makes me less likely to go out of my way to help you in the future too.
4. Users.  We all have had a friend from our past that said they wanted to be our friend, but it turned out they did only for what we gave them.  They used us for money, food, help, etc.  It is a take, take, take situation and they don't give in return.  If they do give, it's such a small amount and they think it makes up for everything they have taken. 

I am sure that I missed something, but I can't remember what it is.  In any case, I am sure you got the point.
Family is and always will be your family, but your friends are the family that you choose.  I choose who I want to be in my family very carefully.  Some I may have no say so in the matter because they are apart of my mans family, but when it comes to my side of the family, I only want the best when it comes to them.  I may not have many of them, but the ones that I do have, are the best.