Fine Universe, I Get It, I Need to Chill Out

Last Friday morning I woke up at 4:30, for the fifth day in a row to get stuff done. 

I did a few minutes of the yoga type stretching that I'm trying to do to help my back. I did a few minutes of writing for my freelance job. I ran upstairs to wake up the teenagers for school. I took a shower. I fed the dogs and let them outside. Went back upstairs to make sure the teenagers were actually up. 

Watched Morning Joe while making a spinach smoothie for the oldest teenager and myself. Made lunches for the kids. Tried to hug the anti-hugging teenagers goodbye as they left in the darkness for the bus stop. Woke up the little boys. Made breakfast for them. Put a load of laundry in the washer. Broke up three fist fights between the little boys (they aren't each other's favorites). Yelled a little bit. Swept up dog hair off the wood floors. Yelled a little bit more. 

Said good morning to Tim who woke up and went to take a shower. Watched as he told jokes to the little boys and then grabbed a banana and went out the door for work. 

I finally dried my hair. Reminded JT to get his homework (for the 10th time). Went outside to start the minivan so the frost would defrost. Cried for a minute in the minivan. Went back inside and told the boys to get their coats on. Had a fight about the actual need for coats. Went outside to drive the boys to school and me to work. Read "key has left the vehicle" on the dashboard. Swore because I was already late. Went inside to look for keys and searched, and searched, and searched. Tried some of those stupid breathing exercises. Swore again. Found my keys in the sink because, duh why not?

We laughed that the keys were in the sink. I was only five minutes late for work. It was 8:05 a.m. I was exhausted. It was funny and ridiculous. But also it was a little bit demoralizing because I can't keep it together. 

I know I should make lunches the night before, I should have the kids make their own lunches (at least the older ones!), I should get myself some Ritalin finally, I should ask Tim to help a little in the mornings, I should chill out, I should use a key ring, I should....All the shoulds end up feeling like more pressure.

How are my teenagers supposed to respect and listen to me? I mean how is anyone supposed to take me seriously? How am I supposed to take myself seriously when I lose my car keys in the fucking kitchen sink!?!?

I am trying to do all the things. I am trying to chill out. I am trying to relax. I am trying to be healthy. I am trying to be a good person and parent. But my god, I think I am sucking at it most of the time.

Today after work I went to the dentist. It was for a normal cleaning but I also have recently begun having some pretty severe tooth sensitivity. 

"You need to relax," my dentist told me. "Have you tried yoga?"

Oh my god! Remember when my doctor told me to try meditation last year to help my peri-menopausal symptoms. I must have the trendiest non-prescription writing doctors in all the land. What the hell?! I'm finally at a point in my life where I am more accepting of taking drugs and I end up with this medical team of natural loving wonders.

It turns out that I am grinding my teeth at night so much that I'm wrecking my teeth. At least a couple of them for now. 

So fine universe. Fine! I will chill the fuck out. I will do all the yoga. I will cut back on caffeine. I will work on the shoulds. I am just shooting for less tooth pain and not losing my keys in the sink. I'm not going to worry about being taken seriously. That ship sailed forever ago.

The other day I was actually in a yoga class. Yoga Dan who was a super chill, super cool guy teaching it was showing us how to use vibrating foam rollers. He stepped on the foam roller and lost his balance a bit. The people in the class all worried and someone said "oh no." Yoga Dan told us not to worry. "It's the ego that's afraid to fall, not me," he said. "I am just going to step off like I stepped on. No worries."

Yoga Dan seems like a smart guy. I'm going to try and just step on and off without my dumb ego getting all worked up. I will keep on keeping on with the shoulds and breathing and 

Got any advice on chilling out, letting go, saying no to late-night grinding, not worrying about everything so much and yoga and meditation and all the rest?

Here are a couple people that I met that I now follow on Instagram

Erin Allen- Yoga Supreme
https://www.instagram.com/yogasupreme/
http://erinema1.wixsite.com/erin

Yoga Dan!
https://www.instagram.com/misteryogadan/


Here's some yoga and meditation I can handle (it's very swear-y):

Dear Diary....I Know Some Stuff For Sure This Week

Life just keeps getting busier and busier. I feel like blogging has become like my old diaries where all my entries used to start with "Dear Diary, It's been so long since I wrote in here. So much has happened."

Working a couple part-time jobs, raising a bunch of kids, sort of managing a household and a life has me all kinds of exhausted. 

One afternoon last week we had the house to ourselves unexpectedly and um, we took a nap. Lucy found us like this when she got home from school and took this picture. LOL!

It's hard to find balance, make time for identity and improvement, meditation and coping, being a wife, being active and healthy, being creative. I mean I need 10 more hours in every day please.

I used to write a new blog post every day. Posts about crafts, posts about politics, posts filled with pictures and sometimes funny stories. I wrote posts that were sponsored by toothpaste companies, phone companies and even toilet paper companies. Every Friday I wrote a post about something I knew for sure. Well, here's what I know for sure right now:

• I miss blogging and writing and being creative.

• There is power in being silly and I'm so glad I married a man who embraces that fact. This man is ridiculous. 

• Time is going faster. I mean that's a thing right? The older you get, the faster time goes.

Look at this cute boy, that's my baby!

• Having active, sporty kids is really wonderful. But um, they do get hurt a lot and it's making me crazy (er).

JT's sporty cast for his broken finger!

Saw this poster at one of the dr.'s offices we were in recently. Took a picture to know what's ahead...

• I want to lose weight and be healthy, but I also really love to eat. A lot.

Yes please, anytime. Seriously, anytime.

• I want a long silk robe, with shoulder pads. Yup. After watching the movie Jackie I wanted a long robe like the ones Natalie Portman wears. She looked so sophisticated. But then I was watching Golden Girls the other day and I LOVE that Dorothy's long robe had shoulder pads. LOOOOOOVE. I need and want a fancy long robe. And by the way, I laugh out loud at the Golden Girls. It's some funny shit.

So sophisticated right?

So freakin awesome right?

• I need more sleep now that I'm entering the middle forties.

• Summer is better than winter. Look, I like winter sports, I embraced Hygee-ing but dude, summer is just better. I can't wait for sitting on the porch, swimming, sunshine and sundresses.

• I'm down for learning and embracing yoga. It's going to be my new thing. I recently hurt my back and it suuuuuucked. It all comes down to a weak core and tight hips. That needs to change, so I will be embracing yoga.

• I'm planning my road trip for this summer and I AM SO EXCITED! The countdown is officially on. St. Louis here I come (and a million places in between). It's going to be epic.

• Vanderpump Rules is one of my favorite reality shows. I can't believe I know that for sure, but I do. I teared up at the preview for the upcoming wedding episode. I mean they fly the brothers in? Come on! I'm not even embarrassed anymore. I need distraction from the news of the world and this show is where it's at.

• Fabletics pants are the bomb. I just got my first pair and they are awesome. Which makes me happy because I'm a big Kate Hudson fan and I wanted her company to be good. 

Sooooo yeah, it's Monday, the news everywhere is still so bad, it's snowing, my back still hurts, I have really awful hair, I wish my legs were way thinner and my teenage daughter thinks I'm "so annoying." BUT Monday is almost over, things could be worse, I got rad new pants from @fabletics that I LOVE and my back feels good enough to dance again. Things aren't so bad after all! #dancetherapy #kitchendance #positivity #lookforthegood

A post shared by Angela Youngblood (@jumpingwithmyfingerscrossed) on Mar 13, 2017 at 2:57pm PDT

I Have A Teenage Daughter

"When Lucy was 4 or 5, we asked her what she wanted to try," I recalled. "Do you want to try soccer or tennis or dance? What do you want to do?," I told everyone I had probably read in a parenting magazine that it was good to empower the children and give them a voice in what activities they did. "Lucy looked right at me and she said dreamily, 'I want to learn to ride unicorns.' I was like whaaaaat?" We all laughed and laughed.

I told that story while we ate cake and celebrated Lucy turning 13. The other night we sat around the table as a family and each told a story, or two, about Lucy. It's a tradition we started on Peyton's 13th birthday. We needed a family ritual to honor the children becoming teenagers and storytelling seemed like a good one. 





Peyton told the story about Lucy saying she wanted to be "a cop" at preschool graduation. Wade and JT told stories about hanging out and playing with Lucy. Tim and I told stories about Lucy's independence and imagination and how she has always read at all the boys' games and her standing up for herself on the playground and making us laugh and more.

This is a timeline that Lucy made of her life in first grade circa 2010. She had to pick a few moments that impacted her life. She picked "helping get the president elected" in 2008. I have loved having her with me canvassing, at the rallies and protests and meetings over the years. I am glad it impacts her. I love watching her form her own opinions and beliefs about the world as she gets older.

I have a teenage daughter. That sounds weird. I feel like I just was a teenage daughter. 

My teenage daughterhood actually haunts me a bit.  It wasn't great. It was terrible actually. This is a story I didn't share the other night but it shaped who I am as a person and a mother. When I was 12 I started my period and my parents got divorced. When I was 13 I started acting out and my mother started having a mental breakdown. She and I both started drinking and smoking around then too. Three turbulent years later, both my parents lived in different states and I was living with another family trying to figure out how to grow up. It was a lot of life for both my mother and me.

Now that I have a teenage daughter of my own, I have mixed feelings. I can't imagine going through a divorce and a mental breakdown while having ego-centric/hormonal/emotional teenagers. My heart breaks for my mom and I understand her better. I understand a little more why she drank and self-medicated, not knowing the powerful and horrific genetic disposition for addiction she possessed. 

But I'm also terrified. I don't know how to have a teenage daughter.

"You are not mom," my sister texted me a couple months ago. It's a reminder I need a lot. I know I'm not. I mean I have a great marriage and a stable life. I'm not an addict. I'm not my mom. And Lucy isn't me.

Sitting at the table the other night listening to all the stories about Lucy and watching her smile and feel loved, made me so happy. Lucy is smart and kind and sensible. She loves to read. A lot. She is witty. She is quietly very brave and has very high standards. She knows she is loved. 

As we manage our way through these next few years, I will work on not taking things personally (holy shit this is so hard for me! Waaaa!) and not always expecting the worst things to happen. I will have faith in the foundation of love and stability that Tim and I  have worked so hard to build and provide our family. 

I am not my mother and Lucy is not me. Sure she'll make mistakes and so will I. But we are forging a new path of motherhood and daughterhood. Not my past, but our future. 

This is right after we gave each other makeovers (I went a little heavy on the makeup! lol) and we tried to do serious poses. Which made us laugh and laugh because we looked like some cheap poster for a creepy low-budget Lifetime movie about a tired mom and a rebellious teen. LOL.

Based on what I've read in parenting books and seen on TV and movies, it's going to be a bumpy ride but we'll get to the other side. And yes, I secretly hope we'll be best friends on the other side and tell each other everything, but trying not to put too many expectations or pressure on that. Lol.

So, hello 13. Hello having a teenage daughter. Here we goooooooo!

She's the Rory to my Lorelei. She is serious and sensible and witty. I am more immature at times than she is. 

She's got the teenage selfie/pout face/duck lip thing down.

She's a good big sister most of the time.

She and Tim are very close. She has a great father.

I love her so much.