Author: Joyful Mama

This just made me happy today. I eat very well most of the time and this was just a treat.

Report cards make me crazy happy. I am a fiercely competitive person and I feel that, as a kid, a report card was an opportunity for me to out do myself and improve over the course of a school year. Sounds ridiculous as I write it, but my competitive nature is serious!!

My kids came home with their report cards today. I thought tomorrow was report card day, so this was a special surprise! I am so happy to say that my kids are doing great! They are not above or below where they should be, and despite my competitive nature, this is absolutely great with me. My daughter has definitely had her struggles with math at times, and I genuinely wondered if my son was ready for school when I first sent him. When the report cards come home and say that they are doing well and that they are great students, friends, and citizens, well, that may be my ultimate cause of joy for the week!!!

I love when joy hits me at 8am, as it did today. As I’ve said before, I love my job. This year, however, has been stressful. There are a lot of big personalities within my classes this year, more so than any other year. They clash with each other, at times they clash with me, and all around not the greatest amount of effort is put forth. While circulating today, as students were doing work, I saw this binder. It made my day! Someone cares!! Now I shouldn’t be surprised. The binder belongs to an amazing student who genuinely gives her best everyday, but it still just made me so happy. Not only did she make a word diagram, but the four books along the bottom are the books that we read in class this year. Someone cares enough to create this!!!!! Joy!!!!!

I am an extremely sentimental human being. I used to be sentimental about everything, but that has somehow changed over the years and now a vast majority of it focuses on only my children. My son gave me this coffee cup this past Christmas. It came from one of those school stores the kids have in elementary school around the holidays. Other mothers have described the merchandise to me as “crap,” but for me it is the stuff of Christmas morning tears of joy over the thoughtfulness of my children, their awesome wrapping, and their excitement over giving the gifts they picked out on their own. I am so aware that these moments are fleeting. My son completed our family, and once he is done with these school holiday shops at school we, as a family, are done with them as well. I hold on as much as I can.

By the way, I don’t often feel like I am a “star mom”. I try very hard, but I think most of the time I suck. I hope that when my children are grown we can have an honest conversation about their childhood and I hope they tell me the truth about my parenting. For now, I will take the coffee thermos and just try my best.

When I was growing up, my mom was not a gardener. My parents are “shade people”. They think that trees are great. Massive trees and lots of them! I think this is insane. I am a sun person. Don’t get me wrong, I do take care of the environment, and I actually have a lot of trees on my property but not enough to prevent me from growing beautiful, full-sun flowers.

So anyway, the gardens of my childhood were full of “shade plants”. They were ugly and I thought that that was just how gardens looked. Then, I bought my home. The previous owner was a wonderful gardener. I, sadly, am not, but I am working on it and learning every season. I had to remove several of her garden beds, simply because I could not keep up. (I wonder is she is mad about this, but her ghost hasn’t come back to haunt me yet, so maybe we are good?) The beds that remain I work hard to take care of, and today, when I saw my tulip bulbs beginning to grow out of the dirt, it brought me great joy. It is the first of my spring flowers and beautiful color returning to my garden.

I know that this topic is getting boring, but once again, the weather!!!!! I love it!!!!! My kids got a basketball hoop for Christmas this year. Not from Santa but from my husband and me. It was obviously way too cold at Christmas to put it together and use it, but today was just the perfect day. It was great because it almost brought Christmas back for a bit and reminded us of the Christmas morning when they were so excited to get the hoop. As a parent who is constantly trying to get my kids away from their screens, I can only hope that this will be a toy to get them outside. If they want to add basketball to their already insane list of sports though, I’m going to freak out!!!!

Today was one of those days with many, many moments of happiness. I feel like these days do not happen often and I enjoy them so much when they do. First, I was so happy to see my daughter at her softball practice this morning. The girls on her team and her coaches are amazing and she enjoys the sport so much. It was a rare moment of perfection. My daughter also had two different birthday parties to attend, both having unicorn themes, my daughters absolute favorite thing right now. My son was invited to one of the parties as well to play with the birthday girl’s brother. It was date night time for me and the hubs. That never happens!!!!!! All of it brought me joy!

Please understand that the lives of my children are not perfect, and there were squabbles today along the way as well. There is a lot of drama in the life of my daughter and minor boy squabbles for my son. Girl Scouts and softball were both rough activities for a while, and because of the same girl unfortunately. My daughter persevered though and held out while others left teams and clubs. I am incredibly proud of her and I feel like her sports and clubs are now relaxing events for the first time in a while. My son is a very sweet and fun loving little boy who definitely plays rough and not everyone likes that. We are an incredible work in progress, but today was a great day.

I am a mother who worries very much about the social aspect of my children’s lives. I’m not really sure why though. I was never the popular kid in school, but I never wanted to be. Everyone talks about high school like it was some traumatic event. I thought it was fine. I was who I was and I was ok with it. I hope that my kids will be the same way. Despite that wish, I work hard to try and help them build their friendships. I am very lucky to live on a great block with great families and to have people not on my block with great kids who are willing to drive over. So on this Friday, like other Fridays, I have the benefit of having 7 kids at my house after school. The neighbors think I’m crazy, but it genuinely works for me and I love starting the weekend with a play date. So 7 kids sitting at my table for dinner brings me profound joy. I’m so glad that they have friends and that their friend’s parents are comfortable enough with me to leave their kids for a play date. This brings me joy.

Just as a side note, the pic only shows the boys. The girls were “busy” when I called them for dinner. When everyone was finally sitting at the table, they played telephone. It amazes me that they somehow learned to play a game that I played in elementary school. Maybe some things don’t change.

When my daughter was in preschool, I was informed that girls needed to be put on the waitlist for Girl Scouts months before entering kindergarten. This stressed me out and I called Girl Scouts the second I got home that day. I had a strategy: to avoid the waitlist, I volunteered to be the leader of her troop. Little did I know that the moms who caused my stress were totally wrong; there was no waitlist! So now I’m a Girl Scout leader. Most of the time, I really do enjoy it, but over the years it has been very stressful at times. Between badly behaved kids and parents who are even worse, Girl Scouts has definitely caused more stress than I ever anticipated. I don’t even get paid for this! I’m a volunteer! I’m wrecking my life for free!! Recently the troop has seen some changes though. Two girls moved out of the troop. As a result of what may seem like a minor change, the troop is finally at the point were all of the girls are good and kind to each other. There is little drama and they are truly wonderful friends to each other. This is what I wanted when I first signed up to be a leader. Watching them work at the table tonight, while all being kind to each other and laughing together, gave me profound joy!

I just have to throw this in: Girl Scouts is actually a cult based on the sale of delicious cookies. Does anyone want to buy any? Cause you know I have them.

It’s spring!! My son is very, very interested in anything related to the solar system and was very excited to see the Super Worm Equinox Moon this evening. Despite the fact that it was cloudy, it was still beautiful through the trees and a nice activity to do all together on a chilly evening.

I love the time of year when it begins to feel like spring. Once spring is actually here it is great as well, but there is something about the anticipation of spring that is even better than spring itself. It definitely has to do with the weather, but I think there is a smell to it as well. A smell that, to me, always means that good days are coming. Today was one of those “spring is approaching” days here. My kids had lacrosse practice, different times but the same field, thank god! And my husband, who signs my kids up for every sport imaginable and coaches many of them, had the advantage of having to be at work for tonight’s practices. Wtf?!?!? Despite the rush to get to practice and the stress of knowing that homework and dinner and showers are going to be crazy tonight, there are moments of joy in the experience. Being outside, even though it is still a little cold, just brings such happiness and a literal breath of fresh air. So needed after a winter indoors.

Today was an easy day to find joy. It is my birthday and being surrounded by my husband, kids, and an ice cream cake sparks nothing but joy in me. Especially the cake, which was delicious. My husband bought me a “Family is Forever” sign. When I opened it, he told me, “That isn’t a threat, you know. I really do mean it.” Few things in his life occur without a joke or a punchline. The sign immediately made me smile. I genuinely hope that my family will be a “forever” thing. I hope that in years to come we will still spend joyful birthdays together, hopefully eating ice cream cake.

As a mother, a wife, a daughter, and a 37 year old with a career, home, and what feels like a million responsibilities, I have realized, very sadly, that I no longer find joy in my day to day life. It isn’t that I’m depressed or unhappy, I have just fallen into a routine and my days have become rituals with sparks of joy mixed in but far too few. So this is my idea: for one year, I will find a touch of joy in every single day, even the most challenging ones, and share it with anyone else who may need to start looking for the same joy. I truly feel that joy is still present in my life; I just have to remember to see it!

This is about me, but I’m going to be honest and state that a lot of my joyful moments will be about my kids. They bring me more joy (and frustration) than anything else in my world. Don’t get me wrong, my husband is great (on most days) and I do love my career, but my kids are my life and I am grateful for them everyday. But after writing that, I have to ask, when I begin looking for joy, where else will I find it?

So, here we go…….