Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: motherhood

  • The Most Valuable Lesson I Learned From My Oldest Child

    kids young

    My oldest kiddo, David, was often on “hurricane cycle” when he was young. He would bounce from one activity to the next (like his Mom??) and leave a path of destruction in his wake. I once put the baby down for a nap and left David and Lauren parked in front of the TV so I could quickly go to the bathroom. When I came out, I found the two of them drawing wavy lines on the kitchen wall. In a matter of seconds, David had grabbed some crayons off the counter and coerced his sister into coloring the wall. The artwork stayed on the wall for over a year–because neither the hubby nor I could muster up enough energy to paint over the crayon.

    One evening, David was a Category Five on the hurricane scale and my patience was long gone. David and Lauren were fighting over toys and neither of them would sit on the couch long enough for me to breastfeed the baby. Steven was colicky and wouldn’t stop crying. I was tense, crabby, and just plain tired. I was just trying to survive long enough until the hubby arrived home so I could hand off the kid duties to him.

    Joe walked in with a smile that soon disappeared from his face as he surveyed the toys strewn everywhere, the lunch dishes still on the table, and the once-folded laundry now overturned on the floor.

    “Bad day?”

    I shot him a look.

    “Why don’t you go take a bath and relax,” he suggested. “I’ll watch the kids.”

    After a hurried dinner, I filled the bathtub up and went to grab towels from the other bathroom. As I walked back in, my eyes caught something floating in the bathtub and David standing near the tub.

    “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

    I dropped the towel and scooped out the brand new book that I was so looking forward to reading. With a heavy sigh, I sat on the toilet and tried to dry off the book.

    I started to cry. It was all just too much. Mothering three kids just two years apart in age had finally taken its toll and everything came crashing down on me at that moment. The tears poured out. Just then, David came over, climbed in my lap and started hugging me. He gave me a kiss.

    “I love you Mommy.” He hugged me again.

    My eyes went back to the book and I saw the title more clearly.

    “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.”

      
    I started to laugh.

    Alternating between tears and laughter, I smiled at the irony of the whole thing.

    It is now years later– the little boy has grown into a young man who graduated from college and is living on his own. I still have the book with the warped pages stuck together. It’s a reminder of that hectic time of three kids under the age of four–when I thought the day would never end and I’d never have a minute to myself. Today, two of the kids have moved out and the youngest one is about to graduate. How quickly the time flies.

    Don’t sweat the small stuff.

    Life goes by in an instant. The little stuff that you unintentionally blow up into big stuff will likely not matter years from now. Pick your battles carefully. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

    And remember to laugh in the process.

  • Life is Too Short to Pout All the Time

    Many years ago, I began writing for a website that produced product reviews and I had to come up with a personal tagline or quote to reflect something about me.   Mine was simply:  “Life is too short to pout all the time.”  That line came to me years ago, when my kids were four- and two-years old, and my youngest had just been born.

    As you can imagine, life back then with a four-year old, two-year old and a crying baby included days where the kids would pout and whine.   After juggling everyone’s needs, keeping track of who was fed and who needed to be fed, refereeing two fighting toddlers, all this on top of attempting to keep the house in some semblance of order–by the end of the day, I was pouting myself.  As soon as the hubby arrived home from work, I whined and unloaded on him.  Then one day, after a particularly trying day with the three kids, I said to them, “Come on, guys, life is too short to pout all the time.”  We took off for the kitchen and made brownies together.  Soon we were all happily chomping away on warm brownies.

    I learned a valuable lesson from those younger days with my kids:  life is meant to be enjoyed with your family and your friends.  The toys on the floor could wait to be picked up, after all, we were busy playing and learning.  So what if the house was in shambles– it was more important to connect with my neighbors over a pizza while the kids played together.

    There was another lesson to come.  One day out of the blue, (that’s usually how it happens, doesn’t it?) my husband learned that his close friend, Tod, was dying.  Diagnosed with cancer at Christmastime, he only had a few months to live.  We talked about taking a dream trip somewhere together with our families, but Tod was too sick to travel.  So we called up a bunch of his friends, piled them all in a van and drove down to see Tod.

    We spent a magical weekend together filled with laughter as well as tears. “Remember this? Remember that?”  We asked each other, as we relived memories and fun times together.

    That night, the snow fell, covering the trees in a glistening white.  We had a quiet moment gazing out into the backyard and seeing the moonlight bounce off the snow.  Tod’s wife came up to us and simply said, “Thank you for this weekend.”  We knew what she meant, because we were all feeling it:  happy, sad, connected, and at peace.   Just weeks later, Tod passed away.   He gave us a gift: a gift of appreciating life, of appreciating family and friends, and the gift of appreciating love.

    After Tod died, I reflected on what I wanted to do with my life.  How did I want to be remembered when it was my own time to go?  I had three deaf and hard of hearing kids that I was raising—what could I do with my knowledge, my skills and my journey?  I took on projects, volunteer work and paid work that brought meaning to my life.  I have to say that Tod’s death raised a lot of questions inside of me and drove me to appreciate life more.  Just weeks after he passed away we made some changes in our lives and did some things that we had been putting off.  We quit decorating the house and bought the used boat that we had been talking about for years.  We took cheap vacations with other friends.  We spent more time up in Michigan visiting my parents and the in-laws.

    Of course, I still have some days when things go wrong and I’m about to tear my hair out.  I had a day like that not too long ago, grumbling and venting to anyone who would listen.  My daughter took one look at me and said…

    “Mom, life is too short to pout about this.”

    Originally published on Chicago Mom’s Blog, April 2009

  • Life on Spin Cycle

    I looked at my calendar the other day and sighed. The entire summer is booked solid between work, conferences, travel and the kid’s activities.  When the kids were little, summer used to stretch out before us like an idle odyssey. I remember when the biggest event of the day was dragging out the swimming pool and filling it up for the toddlers to splash in. My neighbors, Barb and Denise, would bring their kids over and we’d sit in the backyard and chat for hours. Some days, we would order pizza and sit out and talk until the bugs drove us inside.

    Barb moved away to California and the kids are now teens. Denise and I both work from home, so we try and grab a gab session here and there, but our visits are far too few lately.

    I don’t know how this happened, but life has ramped up to spin cycle. 

    Like a washing machine, it started out so slowly that I almost didn’t notice it.  I picked up one part-time job, then a full-time job– added a book club, another women’s group, a couple of writing assignments and then volunteer work. To top it off, I started writing a book.

     

    And like the washing machine, I found myself smack dab in the middle of spin cycle and wondering how to hit the “off” button.  The problem with going around and around in a circle is that you can’t stop yourself. You’re spinning so fast that you’re glued to the walls of the machine. The thing is, if you don’t get out of spin cycle, eventually something is going to wear out and stop working. 

    I stuck my hand out recently to try and stop the spin. Sitting in my inbox was an invitation to a committee that three years I ago, I would have jumped at to be involved in.  After a lot of thought, I graciously said no and actually felt good about it. I also said no to some volunteer activities and some other requests for my time.

    Unfortunately, my calendar is still booked for the summer and there isn’t much I can do about what I’ve committed to. Work has to be done, the kids have to be driven here or there, and there’s the graduations and weddings to attend.  Fortunately, I’ve booked in some fun, some barefooting and some enjoyable writing.

    Now I just have to figure out how to slow the spin down to a gentle tumble.