The Pursuit of Happiness Update

In my blog entry titled, The Pursuit of Happiness, I blogged about my new goals for the year 2012.  While I had good intentions on keeping up with reading the book and blogging about the process...I haven't.  And since the birth of boy #3 two months ago,  I haven't blogged at all.  My world has flipped upside down and this once organized mother is embracing organized chaos as my new motto.  And, by using the term, "organized chaos", I really just mean chaos.  I haven't cleaned the bathrooms in 8 weeks and you can imagine how those look with two little boys and one big boy (Jon), using those daily.  My laundry is piled in a mountain in my bedroom and this is after my mother-in-law washed and folded all my laundry last week.  She felt sorry for my family, I guess.  She was also trying to help me out since I had surgery...hemorrhoid surgery.  Yes, I've had a pain in the ass for awhile, and this time it wasn't Jon.  It was however, caused by the delivery of all three of my little blessings though.  As embarrassed as I was with admitting to needing this surgery, I'm slowly losing all modesty I once had.  Giving birth and motherhood has this crazy way of doing that to you.  At some point, you quit caring how many people in the delivery room are staring at you as you're spread-eagle in the stirrups giving birth, or when you're trying to breastfeed a screaming infant in public with a blanket over you in 98 degree heat, and your baby yanks the blanket off, or when you're little boy shucks his pants down at the playground and pees.  All these things happen to every mother, every where and so what's the big deal with admitting a little surgery, right?

Anyway, back to the update.  One of my goals was to challenge myself to do more fun things with my boys that were spontaneous and creative, yet cheap.  So many times, our fun involves going somewhere or buying something and I feel like I'm cheating them if I don't try to challenge my generations' way of entertaining kids and bring it back to simplicity.  What I should be embarrassed about it is how my six-year old can operate an iPhone or the remote as well as he does.  A couple things we tried: making rocket packs with old two-liter bottles and pretending to be "rocketeers",  building a blanket fort and eating a picnic lunch inside, using masking tape to make road pathways through the house to drive hot wheels on, "painting" with dyed shaving cream in the bathtub, and last but not least, using glow sticks in the bathtub and taking a bath in the dark.  The boys really enjoyed this last one, and I have to say, I thought it was pretty cool, too.  I love Pinterest.  I can feel like mom of the year, just by copying someone else's ideas...brilliant, since I have no brain cells left these days from lack of sleep.



      

Now to work on my other goal of taking better care of myself.  These days, this could just include getting a shower or brushing my teeth.  I know...gross.  Even to my husband, me taking a shower has become something special.  He walks upstairs and smells my soap and it's almost like hearing Marvin Gaye sing, "Let's Get It On."  He considers it an invitation of romance...men.  Anyway, I'll keep you posted on how that goes.