Kricket's Happy Korner: Volunteering

Let's talk about volunteering and how awesome it is. :) If you didn't know already, I volunteer for Foothills Animal Shelter. I go in on Saturday's and walk dogs for 2 hours, and then spot clean the kennels. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

Not me, but you get the idea. 

My previous volunteering experiences have not been as good. As a teenager, the youth organizations of my church gave us a lot of "opportunities" to serve, and most of them I did not like. Going and singing to old people at a nursing home always scared me (thanks traumatizing experience, Brownies). And going to other people's home to clean it, worst idea ever. "Service Projects" always made me cringe because it generally involved helping other people. I'm not really a people person.

Don't get me wrong, I love people. I'm also pretty good in social situations and I'm even comfortable standing up and giving talks or teaching a class. It's just, given a choice between helping people or picking up dog poop... Hand me the pooper scooper please.

So what made me think of spending my Saturday afternoons volunteering? Well, for a while now I've dreamed of the time when the kids would all be in school and I'd have entire afternoons to my self and the idea of volunteering at an animal shelter always appealed to me. Then, one day it dawned on me that I didn't have to wait that long.

I'll admit, my reasoning for starting were 100% selfish, and that's okay. I wanted to get some time away from the kids and I wanted to play with animals. All of these desires are totally self serving. But yesterday, as I was walking dogs and seeing how happy they were, with their cute little puppy smiles and the way their tails wag, I realized that I'm helping them more then they're helping me and it made me feel really good.

You're smiling because he's smiling. :)

And who doesn't want to feel good?

So, if you're looking for something good and productive to do on the weekends, a good place to start is JustServe.org . There you can find projects in your area. Also, if you're interested in helping animals, look up your local animal shelter or humane society to see if they are in need of help (trust me, they are).

Well, thanks for reading and I hope you have a Magnificent Monday!

Kranky Kricket: Poop

I posted a little thing on Facebook about this yesterday, but I thought I'd expound upon it here, because this is my blog and I can do that. ;P

So I have some neighbors that I, believe, have two cats. A gray tabby and a black one. I know the tabby is their's for sure, and the black one is always around so I just figure it's my neighbor's as well.

Anyway, I live in a little town home complex that has a rule about keeping your animals on a leash when outside, INCLUDING cats. And along with that rule is one to pick up after your animals.

Well, these cats have decided that my garden is their litter box. I used to have flowers there, but they died, so now it's just an empty patch of dirt by my front door. And for weeks now I've been finding cat poop in there and there has been dirt spread all over my front walk. It's annoying and it's messy, not to mention gross and dangerous. Poop of any kind is full of nastiness.

I'm getting fed up with this. I've even moved some of my potted plants so that the cats can't get to the area, but that hasn't stopped them. There was dirt everywhere just yesterday. I shouldn't have to put up with this or clean up the cats' mess. They're not my cats.

And what really gets under my skin is that I have a 10 lb Chihuahua who is the same size, if not smaller, than these cats. I pick up his poop when we go out. You'd think these cat owners could do the same thing.

So, now I'm waiting to catch these cats in the act. And when I do, I'm going to talk to their owner. I'm sure the owner isn't aware that their cats do this and hopefully by making them aware, they'll stop letting their cats out. They're not supposed to be out by them selves anyway.

And for the record, I like cats, never owned one, but I do like them.

I mean, come on, who couldn't love a face like that? :)

Well, thanks for reading and I hope you have a less cranky Friday and a fun filled weekend!

Kranky Kricket: Mommy Guilt

Oh my, I just realized, here at 7:30 PM on a Saturday, that I forgot to post a blog yesterday. I had it all planned out in my head too. But have no fear, brave reader, I am here now. Following is a slightly pessimistic, and rambling, view of motherhood.

So let's talk about Mommy Guilt. It's a thing, I'm sure of it. And it's brought on by some crazy idea of what the "perfect" mother should be. In my mind, the "perfect" Mom is one who keeps her house clean, kids properly fed and appropriately clothed, is loving but firm in her disciple, keeps her kids busy doing healthy or educational things, sticks to a good schedule/routine, and is always productive. Any thing else, like hobbies or spending time with people who are not your kids, is just gravy.

I am none of those things. Well, I might be a couple of them on any given day and I've only manged to do all of them at once, maybe twice a month, but that's it.

I'm always behind on the house work, and my house isn't even all that big. There are some days where the majority of Will's diet is Goldfish and we're all in our PJ's all day. My disciple ranges from spoiling the boys, to completely over reacting to minor things. The boys spend way too much time watching TV and not enough time being outside or doing something constructive. My routine, even when written down, is all over the place most days. And I spend way to much time being online doing next to nothing.

I am so far from perfect it's scary and depressing. And there are many days that I go to bed kind of hating my self for it. And rationally, I KNOW I shouldn't feel this way, I KNOW that no one is perfect, not even those people I look up too. I KNOW that there really isn't such a thing as "perfect". And yet, I always find my self lacking.

All of this, is Mommy Guilt. We Moms want the best for our families and we want to give them our all and make life easy and beautiful for them. I mean, that's our job right? It's not enough that we're pregnant for 9 long awful months and then push a baby out of our abused bodies. We're expected to care for and nurture every aspect of this tiny creature's entire life.

And this Guilt doesn't even cover our other roles as Wives, or Employees, or Friends, or Family. This just has to do with children.

It's a lot of responsibility and a lot of pressure. Lives are in our hands. If we mess it up, there's a whole life damaged and scarred, that might not be able to recover. Lot of freaking pressure, I tell you. Thus, the Guilt.

And Mommy Guilt can be debilitating, trust me, I know. I fight it every day. I open my eyes every morning and have to decide how I'm going to approach this day and by the time I close my eyes at night, nothing has gone as I planned. Sometimes it's totally out of my control, but many times, I know it's my fault and what I did wrong. I promise to do better the next day, but it never really gets better. The Guilt makes it hard to get up the next day. It makes me want to curl up in a ball and sleep, hoping that when I wake up, all the problems will just go away.

To be really blunt, it fucking sucks. ((or no, she said the F word, run for your lives, cover your bleeding ears!))

BUT, I offer hope, more for my self than you, but you can have it too, I'll share. Now, repeat after me: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PERFECT. SCREW WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO OR THINK. YOU ARE THE MOTHER TO YOUR CHILDREN, YOU KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR THEM AND YOUR SELF. THE REST OF THE WORLD CAN EAT YOUR HOME MADE CHOCOLATE POOP PIE! (bonus cookies for the person who gets that reference)

Now, go forth, dear reader, and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Comments welcome!

The Joys (?) of Potty Training

Oh potty training. We started training Will two weeks ago. I thought I was prepared. I thought I had a plan, but within the first couple days it all went down the toilet, so to speak. ;)

I originally planed to do this every 15 minute thing. Where you load him up on salty foods and water or juice and then make him sit on the toilet every 15 minutes. Well that didn't work. William would just wait until I put his pants back on and then to pee. So then I tried something that people had suggested to me a few times but I was scared to try. I just let him run around half naked for a couple days.

And yes, there were some wonderfully epic accidents, but it worked. Will learned it was better to go in the potty then face Mommy's wrath. Cookies helped enforce that. :)

So he's got going pee in the potty down well, and only in the last couple days has he figured out that it's better to poop in the potty than in the pants.

He's a smart kid and I knew he'd get it, but that first week was rough, for me. I was convinced that he'd get it within the first day or two, so when that didn't happen I started stressing out. Like a lot. I took his slow learning to mean that I was a bad mom in some way. I know now that was stupid thinking, but at the time it was really eating me up.

But now things are going really well. He's starting to use the potty without even telling me until he's done. We haven't tackled night time stuff yet. I figure we need to get the routine down for day time before we go there. So for now he's still sleeps in pull ups.

I know we're not done training, but he's making good progress and that makes me happy. Now the next step is getting this kid to sleep all night and not try to get into bed with us at 3 in the morning. But that's another post for another time.