mehmomma

Renee alberico's Journey Through Life

Month: July 2012

The Buddha Never had to Register for Baseball or Ballet — July 8, 2012

The Buddha Never had to Register for Baseball or Ballet

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      Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. 

                                                                                                                                                                               – Buddha

I love my Buddha quotes.  In fact, I love quotes.  I read them ad nauseam.  here are a few more…

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else                           means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  – e.e. cummings

Ruin is the road to transformation. Always be prepared for endless waves of transformation – (I don’t remember who wrote this, so sorry about that)
You don’t want to be great at what you do, you want to be the only one.  – Jerry Garcia
So yes, I read quotes a lot.  I write them down.  I tape them to my notebooks like a middle school girl.  I put them in the notes section of my iPhone.  Yet when I came across this Buddha quote the other day I became incensed at Siddhartha.  I was like, “Dude, did you ever have a schedule?  I mean, you were a prince who never saw the outside of your castle walls until you were a teenager if my memory serves me correctly.”
I mean no disrespect to the man who is now the lawn ornament to millions across the world, and to the man who has calmed billions of minds  – including mine and Deepak Chopra’s.  I just want to ask him how he would deal with all my scheduling dilemmas.  So here goes my imaginary convo with the Buddha.
“Buddha, it is so nice to finally become fully enlightened and sit in the full lotus next to you and get a chance to telelcommunicate with you.  To give you some background, I have four children, ages 9, 7, 5, and 3.  Next year they will all be in school, plus my three girls dance, play the piano, want to do gymnastics, and my oldest wants to play the viola and sing in the school chorus.  My son wants to play the piano, learn the guitar and the drums, play football and baseball. How do I get all that all on the calendar without conflicts and without imposing on too many people for rides, whilst making sure my kids aren’t overstimulated yet properly exposed to the correct amount of extracurriculars so they’ll be well-rounded individuals that will go to East Coast schools all while focusing on the PRESENT?”
“Somewhere in there  I would like to volunteer for school, make healthy food, exercise, and have time to keep healthy relationships with my friends, family, and my  husband. Wait, Most Honorable Buddha, where are you going?  Are you thinking and walking?  I have never seen you walking and thinking before.  I must have really presented you with a conundrum.  Hey, I did’t know chubby guys could run so fast.  Come back here and give me some guidance!”
Just as I thought, the Buddha never had to sign his kids up for Baseball and Ballet.  For now, I’ll have to live in the now while planning the future.  It may not be the Buddhist way, the it is the “Meh” way.
My First Post: Where am I going with this? Please don’t judge too harshly. — July 5, 2012

My First Post: Where am I going with this? Please don’t judge too harshly.

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This is my first official post on my mehmomma blog.  Why mehmomma?  Well, I’ll start with the “momma” part first.  I am a momma of 4.  I stay home with them.  I used to be a teacher and a tutor.  Then I had too many kids.  I found the balance impossible.  It’s funny.  If someone asked you to balance a book on your head for 20 or so years, you would laugh at them. Or to balance on one foot.  You would laugh again.  Yet so many women are up for the work/family/friend/clean house/PTO/good wife challenge.  Then we wonder why we are so stressed out or we are constantly explaining to everyone we aren’t stressed out, we just love exercising 3 hours a day and sleeping 4 hours at night.   I know, not everyone is stressed out, I am only talking about myself in particular (minus the working out part).

This is where the “meh” part comes in for me.  Meh is an expression of apathy, boredom, or indifference – when one simply does not care.  When I try to be the perfect mom, I only come out sort of meh.  Now many would argue with you – mainly my husband (primarily because he has to) – and say that I am amazing and so relaxed and calm.  Yet inside I am nervous and anxious and worried all the time.  But of course I can’t show that ugly inside.  No way, I must act as if I totally planned for my kids to eat a bag of Cheetos for dinner.

I don’t exactly know how I am going to structure my blog; I am just glad I wrote something for the first time.  I might try it like Gwyneth Paltrow does on Goop.  She has those adorable topics every week or month or whatever. I might use this as a springboard for my search for enlightenment and spirituality, but that might be  a bit too heavy.  I could just use it to babble. I might eavesdrop at the playground and write about moms’ concerns – but are they being real?  I have no idea.