blessed

They say having children is a blessing. A blessing ....let me count the ways.
they say children bring you joy,
they say children bring you pride
they say children bring you youth
they say children bring you longevitiy

I have five children, four girls and one boy.
There are times when I am glad when they are gone for the weekend to visit grandma. There are times when I'm absolutely happy that school's been reopened. There are times when I'm elated that the neighbors kids come calling so they would go outside for awhile. There is every night when I'm just satisfied that they're in their beds.

I try to be a good mother, I really really do, but then there are the times when I think "blessing, really?!"
Sometimes they are my trial
Sometimes they are my disappointment
Sometimes they are on my last nerve
Sometimes they are my frustration
Sometimes they are my stroke/ heart attack pending or patience ending inducing meltdown

But then I think to when I was tasting the bitter morning bile when ever I threw up, the inside movements that only I could enjoy, the strong kicks and nudges and cravings and sciatica and .....

they are a blessing

they are my pride
they are my joy
they are my loyality
they are my longevity
they are my smiles
they are my jokes
they are my youth
they are my loves

blessing

before

So I look at my self in the mirror and with the utmost astonishment, realise with great reluctance that I'm the 'before' picture. The before picture where your love handles are spilling over your undies and your boobies are angling down toward the great gravitional pull of the earth. Your belly button is no longer cute and shallow, but is instead the model hole for planting spring bulbs. And for some reason I have the same bad hair as in every before picture.I slowly turn to the side and "gasp", it's worst than I thought. I can pick up my belly and see the big doughy fat that is now my mid section. I wiggle it and watch it jiggle.Why can't the fat just melt and run off when I do that? I know that when you heat fat, it melts. Won't wiggling and jiggling my belly fat produce the same result?You'd think that the same way the fat targets your belly area after cheese cake, donuts, chips, candy and every other edible fat factory delight, would reverse itself if you wiggle and jiggle our belly fat. BUT nooooooo, that would be too easy. My body just don't work that way.

You would think that by now I'd be accepting of my body that carried and supported five kids and breast fed each one of them. But I'm having a real hard time thinking that this is me. I still feel like I'm skinny. I don't feel fat or overweight. I just feel unsettled that I didn't do a better job at losing the weight after each baby.

So my before picture is me feeling sorry for myself. Pathetic, I know, whiny, I know!

So here is my before......



image removed to due to fear of being sued ......

belonging

So I kinda think that I belong somewhere. I belong with parents and siblings, being the oldest of 4 often comes with a great sense of belonging. I belong with my husband of 23 years. I belong with my 5 kids who either still love me or question their loyality. I belong with the Muslim community to some extent even though I've encountered more discrimination I'd imagined coming from Muslims. I belong with this school as teacher of my class. I belong even more to the other school and every time I go back there, it's as if we never left NYC.

I belong with Guyana although you'd probably have to pay me many, many millions of dollars to go back there to live. I belong with the migrants who came to America with a dollar and a dream. I belong with America the day I raised my hand and pledged allegiance to this country.

I belong with all the aides and CNA's and PCA's that make nurses' jobs a touch easier and less hectic since we are the grunts of the floor.

Yes, I have a great sense of belonging.

But will they let me belong?

being

So this is the umpteeth time, I'm starting a blog. I don't know where this is going to get me, but it's  a start. Like the corny saying "A journey begins with the first step" and I don't even know if I got that quote right. So I've decided to start a blog as always late as ever, way long after people have been making money from this, and may I ask "how do they do that?"

So here I am trying to hone my writing skills that I've probably left behind for about 20 some odd years and trying to get my thoughts down in some sort of adult manner having lost all my vocabulary skills and use of really big words. I can't believe my reading and math skills are far below grade 5. I'd probably become semi famous for oh, about 1 second for having a 5th. grader beat me on some game show!!

I guess to be able to write in a manner becoming to me, I should be reading books geared for my age group which is now 40- 50 year olds. Talk about boring, political, weather channel, CNN watching reading. But I'm just not that person. I don't like CNN, the weather channel, I don't watch the news, except entainment tonight, I am not interested in which mortage company makes what money, which stock is going up (even though secretly I wish I was an investor since I kinda like to have loads of money). I  am not even interested in fashion, house and home, gardening or any kind of self help. I'm probably the world's worse motivator, actually strike that, I can motivate people or rather kids I  think.

People seem to think that I help them put things in perspective and I do to some extent, but who's there to put things in perspective for me? The three cats  and five kids that are ready to eat me out of house and home??!!!

My five kids and 1 husband are the underlining reason for this blog.

I NEED TO VENT SOMETIMES.