Holy Moly Goalie Mama Drama!

I survived my first season as an official Goalie Mom! Harrison has wanted to be a goalie since he could stand and hold a hockey stick. Before he could talk, or even knew what hockey was, he would stand in the net with a hockey stick and would have us take shots on him. It seemed odd to shoot pucks at my toddler, but he insisted....unlike all the other children I know, who are anxious to score a goal, my son wanted to stop them! By the age of four, he had his own set of goalie street pads, a goalie street mask and an impressive collection of goalie sticks! One of my favorite memories of him as a preschooler, is of us watching a Flames game on TV from our living room, and him wearing his full goalie equipment and making every save along with Kiprusoff and acting out the entire game as if it were him in the net. It proved to be a valuable exercise for what would later prove to be his position of preference!

When he was 5 years old and we signed him up for Minor Hockey, he asked to be the goalie. The only problem was, that until they start playing at the Atom level (age 9-10) they rotate positions. He was so frustrated by this. He wanted to play net. He knew he belonged in net. But, rules are rules and he rotated positions as set out by the Minor Hockey guidelines stated by our association. That didn't seem to matter to him. He would just stand in front of the net and play goalie from "D". The coaches have had to tell him not to play goalie from outside the net and have been heard yelling from the bench, "Harrison, you're on Defence! Defence! Get out of the crease!" You can take the boy out of the net, but you can't take the net out of the boy!!! He finally got his big break in first year Novice (age 7-8) when he had proved himself in net in a handful of regular season games & the coach asked him to be the play off goalie! That year they had an awesome play off run and won the banner in their division, with Harrison as the goalie! And if he wasn't hooked before, he was then....

So last fall, we agreed to let him try out for goalie. We sunk a small fortune into goalie equipment and decided to let him get it out of his system. After a full season as one of two goalies for the Olds Grizzlies Atom B hockey team, it's still not out of his system! Being the goalie is a tough gig. The goalie is like the Lone Wolf. You are the only one playing an individual game in a team sport. You are the only one on that team defending the net, stopping very hard frozen pucks with all parts of your body, your head included, as the last line of defence, shutting down the shooters of the opposing team, while the rest of your team is shooting the puck in the opposite direction, with the single goal of scoring. The puck has to make it through five of your teammates, including two of your own defencemen (who can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare!) before you even get a piece of it....but when you do, it's Do or Die! It's all or nothing! There can be a lot of standing around for a few seconds of total adrenaline rush. It's far more of a mental game than a physical game, even though the goalie has to be very fit and flexible. You need to bring your best game, every game. Do not let them shake your confidence or it will mess with your head and throw you off your game. You take the fall for a tough loss, as the team can be quick to blame the goalie for lack of defence. And you rarely get recognized for the glory of a hard fought win.

Besides your defencemen, a goalie's other best friend is the goal post! As a Goalie Mom, there is no sweeter sound than hearing that unmistakable "ting" of the hockey puck hitting the goal post! I can conjure it up now like no other parent can, and can still get the exact pitch as it rings out across the cold arena. And I always let out a sigh of relief when I hear the familiar "thunk" of the puck bouncing off his stick. When my nerves can't take it and I can't look, I can close my eyes and listen, and still tell you exactly what happened! It takes nerves of steel to be a good Goalie Mom. The best compliment I had all season, was when one of the other Mom's on our team came up to me at a high tension game and said to me, "I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you can watch him play in net and stay so calm."  All I could think was....'I'm NOT calm!!! Do I look calm!? I might look calm on the outside, but I'm freaking out on the inside!' And that's the secret to being a good Goalie Mom! Never let them see you sweat! Show confidence in your player, even if you're losing. Stand behind your goalie, win, lose or draw. In both role as goalie and Goalie Mom, it is all guts and very little glory! But the secret is doing it with grace!

Pay It Forward

We are thrilled to fill you all in on our exciting news! We found out Sunday via a late evening phone call, that we have been selected as Top 5 semi-finalists in a local contest to earn a FREE wedding, by Paying It Forward in our community, through an amazing organization called Wedding Saviours!!! This is very exciting for us, and we invite you to share in our joy and excitement as you follow our story and support us by "Liking" our link on my Facebook page, by voting for us if/when we make the Top 3 and by reading my blog posts here, as well as the ones on the website I will be required to post. Most of all, it is your love and support and all of you cheering us on from the sidelines that will keep us going and help us stay focused on our goal of earning a free wedding!

 

Our story started in January, when I attended the Bliss Bridal Fair in Red Deer with my sister, as a casual Bride To Be, with no set wedding date, not enough money saved up to plan anything and no plan set in stone to make any of our wedding dreams come true. I attended the Bridal Fair seeking inspiration and ideas. I didn't know what that would look like, however, I felt if I could surround myself with all of that creative energy, the inspiration I needed would come. And it did, in the form of a booth with a kind lady promoting a very worthwhile organization who would later prove to hold the key to our dream of a perfect wedding! She told me about Wedding Saviours, and how they "make the world a better place, one wedding at a time." I couldn't wait to come home and tell Joe all about the possibility of our dream becoming a reality! It would be a long process, and prove to be intense at times, but if we could stay focused on the bigger picture, it would be worth applying!

Wedding Saviours helps couples who have overcome financial and/or emotional hardships, to make their wedding dreams come true, by having them volunteer together in their community, as a way of paying it forward to earn a free wedding. The first step is filling out the online application and answering several questions about past and current volunteer experience, what situations we have overcome, what we are doing to move forward, how our family and friends would describe us and what winning this contest would mean to us. They carefully reviewed all of the applications and we were selected to be among the Top 5 finalists! Now the real work begins, as our task is to choose a worthy organization for which we would like to volunteer our time...together. That is the challenge! Not only to choose a place to volunteer our time, but to work it into our opposite and busy schedules, around raising our two young and energetic children! We must volunteer together, to help strengthen our relationship and solidify our bond as a couple. We are required to document our experience by taking photos, videos, and writing about how it has helped us grow as a couple. We will then face the Red Deer wedding team panel of judges sometime mid-April for an in depth interview, at which time they will select the Top 3 couples to move forward into the final round! These three couples must complete the Charity Challenge, by spending an entire day, working together at the Red Deer Food Bank. After that and one last round of public voting, the wedding team will choose one couple as the winners, who will be awarded a wedding, made possible by local businesses who have stepped up and donated their time and talents, by offering their services free of charge to make a very special couple's dream come true!

We are thrilled and honoured to have made it into the Top 5 to compete as semi finalists. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to compete, and you can sugarcoat it with volunteer work and call it Pay It Forward, but we are in it to win it! However, if we don't end up winning the wedding, we will still come out of this experience richer for having been a part of it. And I know that the memories we make, volunteering together, and teaching our boys the importance of giving back to your community will last a lifetime. I am anxious and excited to see where this crazy ride will take us! Stay tuned and follow along as we prepare to Pay It Forward!

Happy Housewife

After I wrote my last blog post, I immediately felt as though I was complaining about the life I chose, and did not appreciate all of the wonderful things that come with that life. That really isn't so! It just so happened that the week prior to that, I'd engaged in three separate discussions, with three different stay at home moms, who all felt the same way about that overwhelming feeling of never feeling like the housework is done. Add to that how easy it is to start resenting your partner for the opportunity they get to leave the house on a daily basis, and to come home to relax, while our workload continues to pile up! We shared our feelings of frustration over this. On one account, it lead us into a further discussion about what she'd like to read about it my blog. She suggested she likes reading about what she refers to as "real life housewife horrors!" She said it makes her feel better to read about the everyday, real life challenges, that we all face, as women, as mothers, whether we work outside the home or at home, knowing that others feel the same way! Misery really does love company! And so, after piecing together my thoughts, and recounting the discussions I had about what really can be the "everyday real life horrors" that all housewives can relate to, I wrote that post. And now I feel compelled to write about the flip side!

I am very thankful that Joe works so hard to allow me the luxury of staying home to be here for our boys. Not only does he simply allow me, he encouraged me to do it and supports me in my role as stay at home mom. He fully understands the importance of having me be at home for the sake of both children. I'm not sure if it's him not having to ever clean up, do his own laundry, clean a toilet, wonder how or who will get Harrison to his hockey practice or worry about who is at home with the children and what they are being taught! It's not considered child labor to have your 2 year old "learn" how to do laundry and unload the dishwasher is it!? I am thankful for the health of both of my beautiful boys. Add to that list, the health of the rest of my family and my own health and happiness. Although, some days I worry about the state of my mental health! I am grateful for such happy, well adjusted, energetic and willing to learn something new everyday offspring of mine! They light up my life and fill my days with joy! I am blessed to have found Joe and to be raising these bundles of endless energy with him, and to walk through life with him by my side, as my partner in this chaos!!! My life is full of blessings and reasons to give thanks. And while some days it's easy to get caught up in the chaos of it all and forget how lucky I am....I am ever mindful of the struggles of so many others, who suffer many more grievances than I do, and have much bigger burdens to carry. And so, when I look around at the chaos at my feet, it is a reminder of all of life's blessings piled up around me, and I should be so lucky to be the one to sort through it and make sense of it all! And like I've said before....it may be chaos at times, but it's our own brand of homemade chaos, and for that, I am truly thankful and one happy housewife!

Hard Working Housewife

As a "Stay At Home Mom" I have many roles all rolled into one. I am a mother to two wonderful little boys, a partner to the most amazing man, and, a housewife to all of us! I have many jobs to accomplish in one day. Tidy up the toys, clean the kitchen, do the dishes, wipe down the bathrooms, fold the laundry, make the meals. I also have various tasks to tackle. Pay the bills, feed the pets, help with homework & keep track of every one's schedule. I have several titles to live up to. Care giver, nurse, teacher, counsellor & taxi driver to name but a few. Some I love, some I loathe. Some depend on the day and how much energy I have. Others depend on the rest of the week, what else I have to cram into such a short time and what other deadlines I am up against. It's all a careful balancing act.

One of the hardest parts of choosing (and I do realize it is a choice) to stay at home to raise the children myself, is finding ways to overcome the never ending monotony of the daily mundane chores. You know which ones I mean. The ever growing pile of dirty laundry that I can never seem to find the bottom of. And the tandem pile next to this one, of the clean clothes that are in need of being folded and put in their rightful place. The sight of the dirty dishes piled in the sink, because I'm too busy cleaning up the mess on the kitchen floor to unload the clean dishes from the dishwasher to make room for the dirty ones. The toilets that need scrubbing. The counter tops that need a deep clean, but all I have time for is a quick wipe down with Lysol wipes. The dust that is so deep I can write messages to the children in it, reminding them to clean their rooms. Oh right....the children's rooms'! Those are a mess too! Don't even mention the crumbs on the kitchen floor that haven't been swept today, or the vacuum that sits downstairs, yet to be turned on this week.

However, this long list of not yet accomplished goals should not be used to measure what I have failed to achieve. Let it be, rather, a marker of all the other important tasks I successfully executed in their place. Before 8am every week day morning, I have managed to get out of bed, feed and dress two children, make a pot of coffee (perhaps trivial to you, but the rest of my day hinges on this one pot of coffee being made!) make Harrison's lunch (I am often too tired the night before) and have most often had an exhausting argument about the importance of going to school every single day, whether or not you like it! All this followed by the actual trip to school, with more arguing and last minute instructions and one final "I love you" as he slams the car door in my face! My day is far from over. I fill the rest of my morning with diaper changes, cleaning up raw eggs off the carpet and end table (yes, this really happened!) kicking the kitten off the top of the gecko cage and often out of the fridge (don't even ask!) scrubbing impossible wax crayon off the walls of our current rental home, finding the child-proof doorknob cover ripped off the pantry door (yes, baby Bam Bam can pull it right off the doorknob!) and chasing my toddler off of many precarious places, like the top of the giant cat climber! All before noon! I get some reprieve while Stetson naps in the afternoon, and have that quiet time to thank for what little sanity I seem to have left. The after school routine is just as stressful as the morning rush. Pick Harrison up from school and either head home to fight about homework, or to the library for his Junior Readers program or we find ourselves at the arena, once again for another hockey practice. We still have to fit dinner in there somewhere...they do have to eat, don't they!? Didn't I just feed them this morning?!

I try not to envy my better half, as he goes out the door to work every night, leaving me a kitchen full of leftover dinner to be put away, a sink full of dirty dinner dishes and two cranky, over tired children who need to be bathed and put to bed. He flashes me a look that half heartily says he is sorry, when I know that deep down, he really is not. And let's face it...if I could walk away from it all, only to return 8 hours later to find it has been cleaned up by a magic housekeeping fairy, I would too! He goes to work, puts in his hours and comes home to relax. There is a clear definition between work and play for him. When my full time job is cleaning the house and doing laundry for 4 people, my job is never done! Not only does it not end, but the lines between work and relaxation are blurred. I feel like I can't relax as long as there is cleaning and laundry to be done. But when that never ends, how do you know when it's time to relax!? I feel guilty when I've put the children to bed, and I'm exhausted after a long day of laundry and homework and hockey, and all I want to do is sit on the couch, watch trash TV and drink wine. But I know that if I don't tidy up the kitchen and pick up the toys, that they will be there to greet me in the morning and it will still need to get done.

It is hard to hold in my resentment and not let it eat away at our relationship, when I know how hard he works to allow me the luxury of being able to stay home, to be there for our boys. It can be frustrating, to watch him come home from work and want to relax, and unwind, while I am 3 loads of laundry behind and I'm afraid of walking across the kitchen floor for fear of sticking to it! How can he just relax, when clearly there is still so much to be done!? That is when I realize, that unless I force myself to take a break from it all, it will consume me and build barriers in our relationship and prevent me from enjoying precious time with my family. Some days, I have to remind myself to leave the laundry and live with sticky floors. The whole reason we have made these sacrifices is so that I can be there for my family. Where my floors and windows don't sparkle and shine, my childrens' eyes will instead. And that is a choice I can live with!

I am both a mother and a housewife
But when forced to choose one role or the other
I am always first their mother

Two Year Old Angst

Today we celebrated two amazing years since we welcomed our precious little surprise miracle into our family. He is the one little soul we didn't know we were waiting for. And now the brightest light we couldn't live without. He stole my heart the moment I found out we were expecting him and my love for him hasn't stopped growing since that day. We anxiously awaited his arrival, with all the trepidations of pregnancy that one does. Was he a boy? Was she a girl? What colour would the baby's hair be? Would our baby even have hair? Would this baby look like his/her big brother? And the leading question....how tall would this baby be?! On a frigid winter morning, with the temperature sitting at -35C plus windchill, as March came in like a lion, our beautiful baby boy came out like a lamb.


He turned us from a mother and son duo, with a partner, into a family of four instantly. He gave Harrison the title of Big Brother, turned Joe into a Daddy, and gave me the second baby I had been longing for. He was our sweet little cherub...all he was missing were his wings.

He has grown and changed so much in just two short years, as they do. From a long list of firsts, to major milestones, to the lessons he continues to learn at a such a rapid rate, it's far too fast to keep pace with! He is a bundle of energy and a source of constant joy! He will charm you with his blue eyes that sparkle, with his smile that lights up the room, to that trademark wild & unruly curly blond hair of his! He is sweet, kind, full of empathy, gentle, loving, caring and the best of both Joe and I. Do not be fooled by all of that, he has earned the title of Toughest Little Brother around here! He is quick, sharp, agile and athletic, shows a creative side and loves music and dancing. He binds us together and makes our family whole. I cannot imagine our lives without him. We are blessed to know him and to call him son and Little Brother.

And the angst over him turning two is all mine. I look back on two wonderful years and fret about where that time has gone. I want him to stay little. To remain innocent. To fit perfectly on my lap. To call me Mamama. Forever. Not just for this short time that we are given. Not just for the last two years. Not just for the next two years. But forever. As I look at Harrison, who is already 10 years old....I am reminded of how quickly the time slips by, and it's easy to get caught up in the toddler angst, the terrible twos, the trying threes. How could my little 7 lb 3 oz baby, who fit in one arm just two years ago, be running and jumping and climbing....how could he be a toddler so soon? I am torn between wishing he would stay a baby, but wanting to see who he will become. Knowing that there is just as much joy that lies in between both of those worlds. And so as I wish my sweet baby boy a very Happy 2nd Birthday, I do it with a little bit of angst over him leaving the baby stage and entering the toddler stage, but with so much joy in my heart, that I am lucky enough to be called Mamama by such an amazing little human being, who has already made such a difference in two short years.

Happy 2nd Birthday sweet little Stetson Joseph. Mommy and Daddy and Big Brother love you more and more every single day. Go into the world and let your light shine.